


The Greatest of Heights and Hearts.

by ShadyQuiet



Series: Of Worms and Wolves. [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom, Spooks | MI-5, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha!James, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, F/M, Hunger/Thirst, Loneliness, M/M, Over-exertion, Pack, Pining, Predators - Freeform, Psychological and physiological trauma, Sequel, Shapeshifting, Travel, Wolves, heat - Freeform, mentions of mpreg, mentions of past Dub con/non con, mentions of past violence, omega!Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyQuiet/pseuds/ShadyQuiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year has passed since Q leapt over a mountain to save what he could of his life and separated himself from his mate, seemingly with no hope of return. He has Alec, a reformed pack, a life, but cannot bear the thought of never seeing James again. Slowly, its killing him.</p><p>Finally, he has the first sniff of a hope at getting home. The journey is beyond anything he's ever attempted before, and lack of provisions or exhaustion could kill him, if he doesn't get lost...</p><p>But if treading an ancient and long lost path is the best chance he has of getting back to his mate, his brothers, there's not a power in the world that can stop Q from trying. Not when everything in him is calling him home.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <b>This work is part of a series, and will not make best sense without reading the previous instalments.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Search.

**Author's Note:**

> So, three months later... Seriously guys, sorry for the wait! I've been worked to the ground, ill, caught up on other products and all the while busy turning the 'last chapter' of Pack and Pride into the multi-chaptered, artwork-ridden fic that shall now be put before you. To be honest, I'm glad I took the time, because I'm far to fond of this story to do anything but give it the send off I feel it deserves.
> 
> I hope to update once or twice a week, most of it is already written, thankfully. And I really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I have writing it. :)

[](http://imgur.com/P4f29iZ) [](http://imgur.com/BJypkty)

 

\---

 

Q kept a grumble of discomfort low and quiet as he could whilst pulling himself from his well dug and small den beneath the fallen tree. Outside the snow was bright with sun on his darkness-adapted eyes and just heaving himself from the really-not-big-enough-anymore entrance was a feat when his long limbs were heavy with heat-fatigue.

It was really a nuisance on your own. No wonder wolves had mates. Sighing Q shook himself and glanced briefly as he could stand to at the peak of the mountain separating this life from his old one. In the year he’d been away, he had only managed to howl through to James twice after the first time.

“Q!” Pulling himself away from the constant reminder of pain and James the omega turned to Alec, the thick furred wolf trotting over to him from the midst of the relaxing pack. “Glad you could unearth yourself before spring.”

The alpha bounced the last few steps closer and bumped Q on the nose before nuzzling over his ears. Q tilted his head and let the alpha sniff at him appraisingly. He’d gotten used to it over the last year.

They’d only had one flaming row about it, at the beginning when they were newly stranded and Q had had his first heat without James. The omega had been exhausted and lost and full of frustration and pain from a long, unsatisfying heat alone, mourning his mate. To have Alec demanding to check his health thoroughly afterwards had been too much.

Eventually they’d had to come to a compromise. After all, as Alec had pointed out, he’d looked out for Q even before their separation from everything they’d known before. By now, they were used to dealing with each other’s long-standing vulnerabilities.

The subservient nature of Q’s stillness to Alec’s inspection was hardly the norm for the pair of them, and certainly not for the native omegas who had first viewed it as a threat to their ‘leader’ and nearly attacked poor over-enthusiastic Alec.

After a minute of casually drifting nose and eyes over Q Alec straightened with a sniff and a wrinkle of snout.

“You smell awful.”

“Charming, as ever.” The alpha huffed.

“I mean it, Q. Your scent’s wrecked each time you go through this. Wouldn’t it be easier to just accept some heat help-“

“Alec.” Q’s sharp tone and shift away left the larger wolf snorting in frustration but resignation. The one thing Q would not be swayed on, no matter what Alec suggested, was to accept any other wolf as anything close to a mate. Even if the other un-bonded omegas here helped each other through heats on occasion, there were some things he couldn’t bring himself to do.

It was easy enough to accept to himself that this wasn’t only due to his loss of James, but also the lingering effects of The Run that he suspected would never leave him.

There had only ever been one wolf to make him feel safe with that level of intimacy… and even then their beginning had hardly been ideal.

“Alright.” Alec sighed eventually. “I just wish you’d take better Blanca damn care of yourself.” Q smiled a little with a huff of laughter at the curse. Yet another oddity they had had to explain to their newfound friends over this side of the mountain. The first time Q had cursed Blanca, Lobo and all their pups vehemently at the snow-slide he had endured after trying desperately to scale his way back to the top of the nearly-sheer mountain slope that led to James, Eve had stared at him like he’d gone mad.

 _“Lobo and Blanca? You pray to_ those _mad wolves?”_

Still half grinning to himself Q forced himself again to turn away from the mountain he had subconsciously angled himself towards. Hadn’t _that_ been a fun little revelation for him and the motley group of alphas that had followed him here.

Q, still panting and half covered in snow, body turned to the mountain but face on Eve, had looked at her weirdly.

 _“You know them?”_ She’d looked at him even weirder.

_“Those lunatics were mad. Not sure where you know them from, but over here they started a war and stayed just long enough to convince everyone of their insanity before dying trying to climb the mountains. Never heard from again, or so history tells us anyway. Everyone knows about them.”_

_“They were mad?”_ Eve had frowned, half smiling and nodding at him like he was a particularly slow but spirit-minded pup.

_“As a chased rabbit. Blanca was gifted with howling down lights and lightning but went mad with the sight of it and killed all the pack alphas, became a lone wolf and ran vicious into war before eating another wolf, a brother, right before they left. The half-bone carcass is still indented into the rocks of the creek bed… Lobo was the fool alpha who followed Blanca’s tail into starting a war, tried to ‘tame’ the psychotic omega and his whole pack paid the price, all packs did in the war, before they ran away over the mountains with their pack of renegades.”_

_“…Pack?!”_ Eve had laughed at him incredulously.

 _“Aurora alive what_ do _you know?”_

Possibly the encounter had been eye-opening for the both of them… and although Q wasn’t entirely sure that her ‘history’ wasn’t without embellishment… the fact that Lobo and Blanca had been part-savage did go some way in explaining the origins of The Run to Q. Something the omegas here had never heard of and were rather terrified by.

Over here packs would traditionally, the leader and family members especially, dictate which wolves mated. Whether there was attraction or otherwise. Unfortunately the practice had led to lack of out-breeding during hard times where packs were separated. And out of some inner-bred deficiency the alphas, and some omegas had gradually fallen prey to weakness and illness. Why only omegas and betas had prevailed Q wasn’t sure, but then the omegas over here hadn’t asked the question either, not used to making their own choices past infatuation. There were surprisingly few betas at all… and those that were around barely kept in any contact with the main pack and tended to live alone. It was all very odd. But apparently betas were somewhat deemed as ‘of suspicious decent’ here… more to do with their ‘history’ no doubt.

Somewhat worryingly for Q, the present omegas had wanted to maintain the traditional practice now that they were amidst alphas again. As their defacto pack leader, the burden of blessing a relationship now seemed to fall on him, uncomfortable with it though he no doubt was.

Still, it had been somewhat of a lucky sweep. It had meant that the previously savage alphas, who had chased him to this, and sworn on their arrival after Q’s felling of the tree to obey new rules, had to follow through. There had only been a few hiccups to sort out, and that hadn’t only been the alphas being overly familiar with omegas but vice versa. Overall, all their twenty mated pairs seemed very content and several were raising their first litter of pups. The remaining thirty-odd omegas often looked on with longing, but most were always more than keen to help out with the young pups.

It should leave Q probably with a greater sense of achievement; an omega leading a pack of contented wolves. But it was bitter sweet at best. No wolves had, thankfully, even attempted to turn Q into their mate or even so much as flirt with him. Reason said that this could be as simple as none of them being interested in a ‘claimed’ smelling omega over these new un-bonded ones. It could be that they all resented the omega who had effectively trapped them there. Or they could fear him, which for some reason Q couldn’t quite understand many of the alphas did seem to. Guilt, another factor, possibly; certainly Q’s mourning for James had ever been obvious and biting… But there was James’ voice in the back of his mind too… _‘if you are pregnant, more of them may not want you. The bond will be stronger than they can fight for.’_ The idea that he had been pregnant, and Lobo knew they’d had a rough start to it with the fighting if he had been, and had lost James’ pups without being able to tell that pain apart from his own, weighed on Q heavier than he liked to admit sometimes.

More than once a week he thanked Lobo and Blanca –no matter what Eve said- that he had Alec with him. That singular tangible link back to James was a lifeline. For both of them.

“You take good enough care of me. So does everybody else. No one seems to consider me competent in that regard.”

“Yeah and no wonder.” Alec laughed, a hint of something more like worry lacing his tone. “After summer.”

Q sighed but couldn’t argue the point, casting an apologetic look at Alec.

During the summer, terrified of living through his second heat alone after the pain of the first and deep into a depression since they’d sorted out the remainder of their pack politics, Q had decided that the mountain must be easier to get around, through or over in the summer. Just no one had tried.

He’d miscalculated everything. Forgot anything James had ever taught him about survival. Lost most of his own damn common sense and gone into full-blown heat out in the open without a single wolf to defend him.

There were other predators on this side of the mountain. Giant short tailed cats that could leap for meters and huge hairy boulder like beasts that looked slow until they gave chase. He’d only managed to escape the bear thanks to Alec’s timely arrival to save him after chasing him for two weeks. And thank Blanca the alpha had mated Eve not two months previously because he’d had to drag Q by the scruff to a makeshift den with the omega kicking and screaming and heat-mad with panic and guard him until it was over.

They’d had a lot of time to talk on the slow trek back to their new home. Stranded together away from everything they knew, both wolves realised they needed to rely on each other just a little bit more. Not to mention take closer notice of each other. Q’s ongoing agony and constant attempts to get back to James kept him distanced from his friend just as Alec’s recent mating had kept him happily preoccupied with Eve. 

_“You’ve got Eve now… I just, don’t know why you try.” Q finally admitted, voice breaking as his steps faltered, uttering the thoughts of his darkest moments. Alec paused a step ahead of him and turned to face him, eyes wide with shock, reading the omega’s defeat clear enough._

_“Q, no. No matter what, don’t think like that.” Forlornly Q only managed a brief glance up. There were days, and around his heats were the worst, where the despair and loss swamped him. Although he missed James every day, those were the times when it seemed less painful to give up altogether. “Just don’t think like that, alright…” Alec repeated, voice strained. The alpha shifted restlessly on his paws and eventually stepped forwards a bit. He’d mellowed out very slightly in the months he’d been mated to Eve, and Q hadn’t seen much of him during those times. It was strange and an odd relief in one to see evidence of the young, less polished Alec before him._

_“We’ve not spent much time together, I know, I’ve been busy with Eve and you’ve been, well leading or trying to find a way back but,” Alec heaved a breath and nudged up under Q’s chin. The omega was startled slightly by the touch… he hadn’t been touched in a while. None of the other alphas dared and the omegas always seemed to be very careful with him as if they could sense his grief. Q hadn’t realised he’d missed it quite so much, of course he and James had used to touch nearly constantly, for the short time they’d had._

_“You’re my friend here, Q, my pack as much as Eve. If I’d got there a minute later… I couldn’t stand to lose you like that.”_

Since then they’d got it together. Q tried not to isolate himself quite so much and to reach for help when everything started to drag him down. Alec in turn kept a closer eye on Q, kept him a bit more grounded. Eve was only too happy to help the both of them. In fact when they’d returned that summer after the gruelling trek back she’d greeted Alec, worry clearing in her eyes and shaken her head at the pair of them.

_“How the two of you of all wolves made it over here I’ll never know. Come on, the pack caught a stag, you look half starved.”_

Since then things had been a bit easier, but Q had never been able to keep his mind away from the other side of the mountain. His eyes caught on the peak helplessly again even as he sat in reminiscence with Alec.

“There has to be a way over.” Q murmured, thinking, wondering why those tooth-edge ridges wouldn’t give him their secret for a second time. “How did wolves get over them before?”

“You believe what Eve says about Lobo and Blanca then?” Alec spoke up, coming to sit beside Q, fur pressed together as they both gave up the pretence of ignoring the call of the mountain.

“Not everything. She says they died on the way over and Anthea claims Lobo had to kill Blanca in pity before wandering off to haunt the peaks somewhere, but they must have crossed over somehow, or we wouldn’t know of them. Unless they met some wolves that lived somewhere in the middle and they went on to spread the tale, but even then it would mean that some wolves crossed.”

“You’ve been thinking about this too much.” Alec teased, buffeting Q slightly and then nibbling on his ear. Q flicked his ear under the attention but didn’t dissuade it.

“You two conspiring again?” Both wolves looked around to see Eve sauntering towards them, smiling slightly. Q twitched his tail at her welcomingly as Alec bounded up, body a barely-restrained wriggle every time he saw his mate, and as soon as she was close enough butted into her enthusiastically enough to knock a less graceful wolf over. Luckily Eve was blessed with some balance Q had never possessed because she seemed able to withstand and even enjoy the most exuberant of Alec’s greetings.

He didn’t even want think about what their heats must be like. _Not at all._

“Q’s debating your insane escapees.” Alec answered, front paws performing a brief happy dance as he nuzzled Eve’s face.

“Still, Q?” Eve’s words came with both a smile and a sigh. Nobody faulted his ongoing attempts to rejoin James, unless commenting on the stupidity of them, but all the wolves from this side of the mountain despaired at their other halves’ beliefs in Lobo and Blanca. Q, however, wouldn’t be swayed.

“There _must_ be a way. Otherwise none of us would be here.” Eve’s muzzle wrinkled in grudging resignation and eventually sighed.

“Well, they certainly didn’t do what you’ve done, roam their way all over the slopes like a mad thing. They had a plan, they knew where they were going.” Her matter of fact words stunned Q and Alec still, gaping a little. Eve looked concernedly between them with a hint of amusement.

“What? You didn’t think we’d know the history and be able to tell you if they’d wandered around and kept coming back like you did?” It took Q a few moments to catch his words back together.

“So then _where_ -“

“I don’t know _where_ they went, I only know that they knew _how_ to get there, supposedly. Though as they died it seems-“

“ _How_ did they know? Did someone tell them? Does _someone_ know?” Q demanded, cutting across Eve as he stood in aggravated anticipation. He couldn’t believe after all the time he’d spent searching it was only now Eve was claiming they’d actually _known the way_. Of course, the wolves didn’t particularly care to discuss Lobo and Blanca and would rather tell tales of heroes and the Aurora that wouldn’t scare the new pups. But still!

“ _Nobody_ knows Q or we would have told you, and besides they _died_ remember. Maybe we don’t particularly want you running off the same way to hurt yourself!”

“Hey, hey, lets calm down alright?” Alec intervened, gently brushing into the two omegas in turn to ease off their irritation in each other. The alphas who weren’t old enough to remember had had to learn very quickly from those that did how to abate omegas from fighting.

Q hadn’t really realised that his sex were all quite so vicious with each other when riled up. Alec had once complained, after having to help Q break up a vicious fight between two young omegas squabbling over a den, that the opposite sex just didn’t give enough warning.

 _“It’s all cuddles one second killing the next with you lot. I think you’d all fight to the death every time before you gave in.”_ Q had been similarly shocked… but he’d been little better himself. With the notable exceptions that the other omegas here seemed terrified of his temper save for Eve, and the fact that he was equally happy to attack alphas if they needed it. Somehow that always seemed to stop most fights, whenever Q started gunning for an alpha’s throat when two inevitably fought over an omega or carcass. He couldn’t say he was complaining about it either. Competition was probably worse for omegas over here rather than alphas after all, the numbers being what they were.

“Eve would have told you if she knew Q, you know that. Eve, can you tell us how they knew where to go?” Eve shook herself out of it fairly swiftly, still looking a little uneasy about sharing information that might make Q sprint off into the distance but mollified by her mate. Q himself had to accept sitting back and tying down his temper.

“It was Blanca who knew the way, somehow on the Ice Peak, that one over there.” Eve twisted her head and nodded behind herself to the highest mountain in the long range over here. The one that looked like a chunk had been cut out of it leaving it a triangular, imposing gape with one sheer ice and stone edge. “Where Blanca’s pack lived there was a way to get right to the summit. It was an ancient pack but only Blanca managed to climb whatever final peak the mountain had. The madness started there, from being able to see the whole world before your paws. They _did_ know the way to go, even if they never made it, and that had to be where Blanca saw it, there is nowhere else. Wolves have been everywhere else since but no one goes to that mountain.”

Of course they wouldn’t, for these wolves, the Ice Peak was their No Man’s Land. When they were first pointed out to the surrounding area by the elder wolves of the pack one of them had even dramatically referred to it as ‘The Death Heights’ of all things. For these wolves all their worst fears came from there, or from stories of there.

“So that’s where…” Q narrowed his eyes on the peak; too focused to notice Eve’s distressed but resigned expression.

“It’s dangerous up there Q. Not to mention whatever path they _did_ find, there’s no wolf save Blanca that could ever make it to the top to see it.” Her first words were hurried, slowing down into a careful pronunciation that stressed her point of concern.

“If anyone can do it, it’s Q.” Alec offered, and Q threw him a smile that was returned. Eve looked aghast at her mate.

“Don’t encourage him Alec he could die up there, he _will_ if he tries and you are _not_ going with him this time I won’t lose you too!” Alec laughed, half sad himself.

“You think I could stop him? I’ll at least force him to pack provisions this time.” Q raised his head pointedly as Eve looked between them, clearly agreeing with Alec.

“You’re as mad as they were.”

“Then I stand a good chance. Tell me how to get there.” Eve spared a few more moments looking tortured before breathing in and out deeply; she seemed to come to a decision as she looked at Alec once more.

“If you’re going to do this, you’ll have to go now, when the snow and ice are thickest, the river is impossible to cross otherwise…”

-00Q00-

Eve hadn’t been lying; climbing the mounting was an almost unforgivable challenge.

Q liked to think of himself as quite fit, but as he sat curled and panting from a hefty climb through ice-ridden winds up a steeper slope than he’d known was possible, he was very glad that he’d found a miracle den on the blizzarding plain to tuck into for the night. It was bitterly cold, and dark, and Q was quite utterly alone on the derelict mountain.

It certainly earned its imposing stature.

For three weeks he’d been travelling now, and finally, finally the top was in sight. The going was also becoming nightmarish. He’d crossed the river with only some difficulty after a long trek; picking the safest fording points on the vast frozen water. He’d long since left the astoundingly determined tree line; large boughed trees stripped bare of leaves but clinging indomitably to the rock with thick roots and sticking out at near horizontal angles. He’d just about overcome the nausea-inducing jagged rock crags that guarded this side of the Ice Peak; ledges barely wide enough for a wolf to creep along and littered with black ice. He’d tested his wits against crevasses and ice cracks and cliffs, deep snow drifts, terrifying white outs and now the Blanca awful hurricane-like winds… One final push and he’d reach the peak of the mountain.

Thank Blanca.

Q may think himself fit, but this was nearly beyond any wolf surely? If it wasn’t for the drive of James he’d have turned back or given up in the snow long ago. Once or twice he’d been nearly overcome with an awful dizziness that drowned out all reasoning and he’d nearly lied down and let the worst happen.

But for tonight, at least, he’d found a den. Evidence enough that wolves _had_ lived up here. Though how on earth they lived so far up was a wonder, or _why_ they would? He’d left the last sightings of predators behind weeks ago and this den was just shades from the bending trail that led to the final peak. The omega had passed a couple further back too, which made him wonder whether this, nearest to the summit, was the pack leader den or the outsider one? Could it even have been Blanca’s own?

The thought was slightly stunning and made him almost giddy with hysteria. Of course that could also have been the altitude, dehydration and hunger. That could also account for the eerie feelings within the den. There were signs that maybe there had been some sort of comfort in here once… strands of fibres and follicles and the like, and the size was enough for a very old-fashioned family den. Just enough room for everyone whilst the pups whelped.

It didn’t feel quite… right somehow and Q didn’t know if that was due to the rumours he’d heard or the fatigue from his climb. Whilst melting a water-skin full of snow carefully against his body heat, Q tried not to keep looking out the corner of his eye or pay heed to the tingling malicious feeling of the den.

Not somewhere he wanted to visit again, really. The mountain clearly didn’t want him here, or any wolf possibly. It was as if it was cursed… but best not to think about that too much. After all, with the weather so unpredictable he could be spending countless nights here. At the very least he’d be spending one more.

With even a short climb left around what looked like a curving trail to a pinnacle of ice that could only be the impossible looking lookout point, he’d have to spend another night here for his strength. Or if he didn’t manage the peak the first time, or needed to memorise the route. If he could even see it.

Grumbling a little at the bad air lurking in the den and pervading his thoughts, Q settled down a bit and tried to tell himself he was being silly.

He’d made it this far, at least. Ghosts weren’t going to stop him now.

-00Q00-

Three days it had taken for the weather to clear. Q had attempted the summit twice the day before but had to turn back when he saw what the last true height of the mountain was. Now he stood before the tooth of pure ice grown from decade after decade of frozen winds. The pinnacle itself wasn’t that tall. About five wolf lengths.

 _Tall enough_. Q corrected himself, standing at the bottom and eyeing his way up. The ice curved slightly as if it was designed to tempt the foolhardy to climb its slippery surface over the edge of the mountain… but there was one thing that gave Q hope. Permanently imprinted into the slope of the ice were paw prints, as if some wolf had stood in each spot long enough to melt it’s personal form into the frozen surface.

The process must have been painstaking, but it had allowed at least one wolf to reach the top using its own prints as footholds.

With a breath and hoping to Blanca –a suddenly scarily apt prayer- that the way would hold him, Q lifted his best paw and put it in the first print as the wind lashed at him with a lethal playfulness. From some unbelievable luck or thanks to gradual denaturing of the original prints, his paw fit with a snug perfection that gave him strength.

“Right. Come on.” With that and another breath, Q started the climb. The prints had held well over the years though the spacing was a little far apart for Q. At first it worried him but keeping his belly close to the ice in a crawl protected him from the wind better than standing. Gradually after a few freezes for balance the steep curve of the pinnacle eased flatter and Q had reached the last set of paw prints that lined up neatly with legs together. Squeezing his eyes shut Q threw out a thought of James, stood up to full height with the wind and opened his eyes… And the world opened out before him like a book.

He could see it, actually see it, see it so clearly that how could he not have before, but it was _right there_! The way back across the mountain.

 _Through the glacier_? Q realised, tracing the path up slopes and ridges through the interruptions of ice falls. Or course if you weren’t looking, if you didn’t know the path continued on the other side then who would dare venture within the creaking groans of a glacier and, at points, what looked like through the mountain itself.

From there he could just see what looked like a twig of a path in two sheer mountainsides… a path that had to lead to somewhere. He could just about make out the peak of the furthest mountain beyond that, some other ice pinnacle glinting like a blinding light in the sun and guiding the way back to James… And if he could reach there, it might just be in his home range of mountains. It would be with James. If that pathway was still open, if the glacier hadn’t shifted itself shut, if the mountain paths hadn’t closed in a rockslide…

The wind burst up around him and Q faltered and nearly fell dropping instead to cling to the ice with all his claws, eyes screwed shut and only now stinging from the windburn. With care and panting out his adrenaline at the near miss Q slipped and scratched his way back down the paw holds of his predecessor till he landed in the snow at the bottom shakily but soundly on his rump.

Q sat there for a moment, quivering, and panting, and the only wolf on the lonely mountain, but all he could feel was a building burn of joy.

After a year away, he was going home.

-00Q00-

The sun was starting to get higher in the sky finally on the long turn from winter to spring by the time Q returned to the mountain pack. He’d been tempted to go straight to where home was calling, but he owed more to Alec than that.

For a barely bearable but somewhat heartbreaking half-week Q recuperated from his trek and collected what he needed for the next one. Doubts raced in his mind amongst his determination as he sat outside his under-tree den to watch the pack that had become a second home run, play and lounge across the mountain.

What if he never made it back, dying instead in some glacier somewhere? No one knew the way he was going. Q had asked Alec if he wanted the omega to sketch him a map, but Alec had shook his head and taken a step back with a somewhat pained, rueful smile.

_“My home’s here now. I know myself too well to have the temptation of that adventure lying around.”_

Which was fair enough, Q supposed, watching his friend and Eve tussling lightly in the snow and having a game of chase. For Alec, he would always be divided between the mountains where he lived, only now he had more than reason to stay here without straying. Q found himself more torn than he thought possible.

He’d _miss_ these wolves, their ways, these gentle slopes and forests and lakes that he’d explored more than he had the other side of the mountain in the sixteen years he’d lived there. If he could be sure of his success, Q suspected he might feel different. But surely blind luck and bravery could only get a wolf so far, even with Blanca’s grace?

_“You’ll howl though, right, if you get lost or stuck or hurt? I need you to tell me you’ll howl here for help. I’ll come, you know I’ll always come.”_

_“I know, Alec, I’ll howl.”_ He had pushed forwards into Alec’s fur then, nosing deep into the thick ruff of fur and inhaling his friend’s steady scent. The alpha had pulled him close too, in the quiet of the night they sat under, and neither spoke though there was a forlorn and tight sense of goodbye between them.

Q didn’t fancy the thought of dying alone and trapped in a cave of ice or in the dark of the mountain… but to stay here safe and not try would kill him in certainty. Having to come back after failing might desiccate him faster still.

Turning to glance at the peaks he’d come from, the omega spared a thought for whether he’d see it from this view again, worried whether what was waiting for him, should he make it, was what he sought… last night he’d howled long and loud across the mountains that he was coming home to his mate, but received no reply. He hadn’t howled with a hope of James hearing him for the five weeks he was trying to find the way home. Did James even know Q was still alive? Was James himself still okay?

Q lost himself to the tightening rush of imagining seeing James’ form running to meet him after a year apart. The swell of excitement and adrenaline and _want_ it sent through him was undeniable.

There wasn’t any point putting it off any longer, he had no real way to prepare for this journey, save how he already had. Now, he was going.

On one bright afternoon in the middle of winter Q turned from the sight of both mountains he knew and headed downhill, north towards the start of a long abandoned trail that would take him a month to find, in the hope that it would lead him home.

Further away on the same slope, two wolves stopped playing and sat up to watch the lone figure of their friend make the most unremarkable leaving possible to the most demanding of journeys.

Eve’s eyes scanned from the tree her pseudo pack leader had once felled whilst young and passionate, and desperate and brave, lost… to the shrinking loping figure heading who knows where on a trail only mad wolves would take.

“He’s gone then… I half didn’t want to believe he would.” Beside his mate Alec breathed in and out in a deep sigh, turning his own nose to the direction of the omega he’d followed and friend he’d supported, who had both led him to a new home and left him alone there. _Damn Q, always have to find your own way out._

The thought was bitter sweet as he shifted a bit closer to his Eve’s warm fur.

“He always would, even if it wasn’t the way to his home, he’d always have to go somewhere or accept this to be his reality.” Eve was silent for a moment as they both watched the small dot grow smaller in the distance.

“Do you think he’ll be back?” Alec’s odd eyes cast a last long look from Q to the mountain they’d come from over a year ago and back.

“If he doesn’t make it, then for his sake, I hope not.”

They stayed looking that way for a long while after the last sight of their friend had vanished to the snow.


	2. Start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, hope you all had a very merry christmas/relevant holiday!  
> Thank you all for the excitement and comments last chapter it's great to be back!  
> And, hehe, please enjoy/excuse the amount of artwork this chapter, I couldn't resist x3

[](http://imgur.com/iZlUr9R)

 

\---

 

James clawed his way out of his den gruffly and with irritable growls, cursing the snow that seemed to blow in every night.

“You could just move to a new den.”

Sherlock. Acerbic as ever and yet Bond couldn’t seem to get rid of him, after over a year, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Still, almost every day the sight of Q’s sibling, especially the one who looked the most like him, left James struggling with the reminder. Occasionally he needed that tenuous connection, occasionally he resented every inch of Sherlock down to the man’s scent. Occasionally James cursed himself for needing the other wolf’s odd branch of friendship.

The dark wolf was lying with his paws crossed neatly looking as bored as usual. Why the two betas had decided to den up next door to him Bond had no idea. John, at least, was slightly less offensive first thing in the mornings.

“Or you could just piss off.” James growled half heartedly. Sherlock merely seemed to smirk. Sometimes he wondered if the man wasn’t clinging onto and resenting James for the same reasons the alpha was to the beta.

Never would the wild-furred wolf admit it, but James could read that he felt the burden of failing his younger brother nearly as much as the alpha did.

Mycroft was more open about it, had found James the instant he could when he regained consciousness after the fight, somewhat recovered from his injuries, after he had heard what Q had done.

 _“You looked after him for longer than I could have anticipated. I owe you my gratitude for that. You wouldn’t have been able to stop him anyway.”_ James had snorted; hurt, in pain, achingly aware that in the course of a single day he had lost everything important to him.

Q, of course, cut the deepest. James had stood and howled and barely made out the faint song of the returns from where his mate was stranded, again. Hurt, again. Surrounded by hostile alphas, _again_. And he’d known it was his fault. Of course Q would never have stayed put. James should have run faster, fought harder, taken off with Q into the night. He had been just minutes too slow to save his Q from pulling off near-suicide to save himself and those he’d come to care about.

But with Q had gone Alec, loyal to the last, to a fault, trying to save his best friend’s mate even against those odds. He had believed his pack-brother dead for months until one day he’d made his regular trip up to the top of the mountain to hear Q howling finally, _finally_ , after months of bad winds and nothing, of fearing the worst… And when he’d howled, and Q had responded, Alec of all wolves had joined in.

Safe. Separated, but safe. Of course that didn’t entirely cease his worries. Amongst so many unknown wolves, in a foreign land that Bond couldn’t make heads or tails of through the handful of exchanges he’d had with Q, could it be possible that his mate and friend had turned to each other for another kind of support? Q must still be having heats, he would have known if there’d been puppies, Q would have told him… he just didn’t know if there had never been any, or if Q had lost them… and if he had lost them how.

Omegas didn’t have heats alone; they were agony. He couldn’t bear the thought of his Q in pain but neither could he stand the thought of Alec, of anyone, stepping in to help, of Q _allowing_ that.

 _“You idiot.”_ Sherlock had snapped, without repent or fanfare when James finally voiced his worries one evening after he’d been particularly vicious to the younger wolves in the pack. _“As if Q could be capable of anything to that extent.”_ No more had been said on the matter, and James had finally understood, logically at least, that Sherlock was right. John had later clarified it with him.

_“He told all of us what happened in The Run James, even if it was a friend, I don’t think he’d ever let anyone else touch him like that. Not with the way he looked at you.”_

After that, the alpha had been left to feel achingly sad in new ways for his omega, his poor stubborn Q. James was sickeningly thankful, at the same time, that his mate would remain his… but when he dwelled on it late into the night, it hurt to think of them both living an eternity of being alone because they couldn’t be with each other. Equally he tried not to dwell on the nightmares that woke him snarling where one of the alphas who had jumped with Q had taken their ultimate prize.

He tried not to think of the bleak future at all, when he could. There was enough to be getting on with as it was. 

Q and Alec he had lost that day, M he had buried.

Why she had done it James still could only consider with the utmost respect and grief, gratitude, remorse… One night they had spent in the breeding dens, him and Q. The next day MI6 had been attacked. M, when realising the main den home had been breached, had snatched up the furs Q had lain on and ran with them through tunnels she alone knew. Countless alphas had followed her, avoided the other vulnerables in the den completely. She had brought them time, time for fighters to come in from the back and break the lines, neutralise the threat… she had run right in to Silva wearing a large light coloured pelt and smelling of Q.

Silva had put two and two together in the space of lethal seconds. M had gotten a blade through the deepest artery down her flank to the top of her leg; cutting threw sinew and muscle… too much for a wolf of her age, whom Silva had believed to be Bond.

Yet another thing he would never forgive himself for.

Mate, brother, the woman who had all but raised him, certainly invested in his life… and finally her pack and Wolf Law as they knew it. He’d lost it all.

Without Silva, without _Q_ , with half their number dead, a quarter having leapt off a cliff, the sound of agony from James calling for his lost mate to come out, to come home, the fighting had stopped and it was _safe_ now and please come back I’ll protect you and… the rebels had stilled, stopped. The others hadn’t.

The anger waged for far longer than the fight as the rebels were rounded up, dealt with by their own packs or by whoever got to them first. Bond hadn’t been capable of anything but rage of his own, mixed with periods of apathy and depression so great that before he knew it a month had gone by and Mycroft Holmes was again there but now beseeching him for his help.

A strange situation that had been. Mycroft could manage almost any situation entirely, but it seemed that James had become something of a figurehead, mess though he was

Everyone seemed to have reasoned, or have been ‘helped’ to see, that he alone was the wolf that could keep an omega whole and happy, healthy… nearly all of them were convinced that Q had been with-pups. Considering the damage done to the minds of every other omega in the recent Runs, and James’ formidable defence of his mate on the mountains… Q’s somewhat mythical leap of faith to save his mate hadn’t hurt embellish the story either, thanks to Mycroft’s sleeper agents spilling stories of the pair around the packs…

James was now the new image of ‘Alpha’ that everyone wanted to be.

Wearily, with pressure, and no small sense of responsibility and levity, he had become pack leader of MI6.

The rest of wolf-kind’s now greatly depleted packs seemed more than happy to respond to his new laws. Most of which consisted of trying to salvage the damaged population that they had all become.

In some ways Silva had not been wrong; they needed change. Just not the one he had been prescribing.

Tanner, Mycroft, Sherlock, John, Ros, Lukas, Lestrade, Felix and when possible the scant number of omegas had become instrumental in the efforts to reshape the mindset of desperate wolves. Between them they covered the largest spread of individuals that they could. Alphas and betas, the mated and the unbound, the together and the lost, the heroes and the victims.

Change had been a struggle, but after a year, it had seemed to fall into some sort of gritted and rationed peace.

No omegas were to be touched or harmed. There were none of breeding age anyway that weren’t mated. James had Felix and Severine, with their one remaining pup, become the head of a ‘sanctuary’ for omegas and their families within the MI6 territory. It was a small pack in the most utopian of an area he could find, somewhat segregated, but utterly protected by the likes of Lukas, Ros and their hand-picked few. It was all he could offer them, but it felt like the least he could do for Q.

There were three mated pairs, one beyond reproductive age, Felix and Severine, and a pair from another year previous. That omega’s alpha was a vicious one from the far west. James had heard their story with the sharp pang of uncomfortable pain he’d experienced when talking to Felix. Erik, the alpha, was similarly haunted. They had met before The Run, fallen somewhat into lust. Once the dratted thing started, all bets were off. Erik had caught Charles, already half dead and terrified out of his wits, herded into the direction of an alpha after running and hiding and dehydrating for nearly a week. They had fought, badly, one driven mad with protection and possession the other with fear and Charles had been hurt, badly. Rendered barely capable of walking with his back legs.

The wardens had had to call the run to a halt in fear of loosing a breeder and Erik had panicked and stolen away his desperately injured, tenuously new mate before they were lost to each other.

Watching them interact was painful, odd, but they seemed to be doing better in a safe-zone with the rest of the omega pack.

Among them were their lively brood of children, a well kept secret that James was sure Silva would have seen as a gold mine had he known about the two litters of three, half of which were omegas. They were seven and five now, joining Vesper and Felix’s two year old. In addition there was one elderly omega, and five young ones of varying ages, the oldest being twelve, and their immediate families.

Altogether, and though none of them liked to admit it, at least Mycroft had the guts to say it, they had few repopulation prospects, and no plans. None of them _wanted_ to make those plans; given that it would put them on a level with Silva and Moriarty. Sherlock had probably worked out their situation harshly with John though, and Mycroft would already have some un-voiced solution hidden up his sleeve.

James could barely stand to dwell on it. Life without Q was too painful without being reminded of it looking at more omegas. Lestrade could sympathise, to a point. But for James, it seemed impossible.

He went for months not knowing if Q was alive, in the year and a half they’d been separated, he’d heard from Q four times, including the night they’d first lost each other.

Even if Q was alive…he wasn’t where he was meant to be. He wasn’t with James.

It was early spring now in the mountains. Life was gradually becoming easier, prey was growing more plentiful especially with wolf numbers drastically down to half from what they had once been, things were busy, as always… In the back of his mind James _knew_ subconsciously that Q’s spring heat would be soon… and yet, something felt different. The endless monotony, mourning, he wasn’t the only wolf to have lost someone in the battle, everyone was tentatively piecing their lives back together.

But for the last two, maybe three months out of the five since he’d last howled with Q, things had felt tipped. James went to the same spot, every evening he could without being swept away, and howled, as he did every time… and it wasn’t the longest he had gone without hearing Q, but somehow the pull, that indescribable gut tugging that called him to where his mate was last scented and heard… it seemed lessened, as if they were too far, too separated…

It felt dead.

For a while, doubts had been spinning in his brain, each more agonising than the last… that Q and Alec had had to move on somewhere, that Q was ill, there had been disputes and that someone had forcefully claimed his mate, that Q was somehow out of reach.

Or worst of all, beyond all reach. For all he knew, Q could be dead.

To James, if felt like Q was dead.

He had said nothing, to say it aloud would be potentially to have it confirmed. James couldn’t jump the gap himself, though talk him down from the literal edge of trying his close pack had had to. Mycroft, who James could never quite forgive or condemn for giving Q all the knowledge and plans he had, had calculated that the wind that had carried Q over with a handful of lucky others simply wasn’t likely to occur very often. Even if it did, there needed to be sufficient momentum, and less weight.

Sherlock deducted that Q was light enough and fast enough to gain the speed to go over easiest of all, and that the wolves following him, those that had made the jump, were largely alive thanks to the natural gravity of objects and Q’s slipstream in the wind.

James wasn’t sure he cared to pick it all apart, but what it stood for was; he could never see his Q again, even though Q’s howls always said he was trying to get home, James had lost his mate forever.

One thing they were all sure of; the winds had never blown back this way from Q and Alec’s side of the mountain. Maybe decades, centuries ago, the passage had been narrower. Perhaps Lobo and Blanca could simply step over a small fissure, have a piss and declare themselves home…

He wished, beyond anything, that his Q had never managed to achieve the impossible. At the same time, he knew in wishing that that he was doing his mate the greatest dishonour he could.

Q had given everything he conceivably could to save his mate and family, and all others like him, to the point of sacrificing himself. James hated as much as he loved him for it.

It was with increasing lethargy that he watched the days go by, greeting Sherlock in the mornings with less and less vibrance and more resignation each time, voice loosing tone, howl loosing colour, until John and Tanner’s worry was soon seen in all eyes.

Wolves still followed him, and James still led, but he was hollow.

He’d lost Q, he’d lost hope, and now he was loosing himself.

-00Q00-

 

[](http://imgur.com/6lebBBL)

 

Blue mirage-like glimpses of ice and sky surrounded Q. He daren’t use the single lamp he’d brought with him, he would run out of oil. It had taken him a month to find the slippery beginning of the pathway home, skirting around the foothills of mountains and knowing he’d have to climb them back towards full winter above from the spring emerging below. Now, inside the bowls of the glacier, Q trod with each paw carefully and winced every time the ice groaned around him or the pack on his back snagged against the sides of the walls.

He’d been climbing through the deep blue and frozen cracks for two days. Last night he’d succumbed to exhaustion and slept, woken frequently by dreams of never waking –crushed in his sleep by a contraction of the living ice around him- or waking to the pain of finding a foot trapped. Glaciers may move slowly, but they were treacherous paths. Wolves and prey avoided them. Q thought rightly so.

Distances had been impossible to correctly judge from the brief glimpse he’d gotten on the Ice Peak, and the month it had taken him to get started had knocked the young wolf’s confidence considerably. It was an absurdly challenging feat he was giving himself.

But the beat in his heart and soul and blood called for James, and as long as that continued, he would go on.

 _The glacier will be the worst part._ He rationed to himself. It was nigh on impossible to check the route ahead. As a wolf he couldn’t climb out of the glacier and as a human he’d freeze and sicken. That, he couldn’t afford.

So begun the long game of following whatever paths the mountain had opened and swallowed in time, heading resolutely up against the slide of ice and praying not to get trapped in the labyrinth.

As the cold days continued, Q couldn’t help with a constant quiver and feeling of desperation finding himself being led deeper. He had an excellent sense of direction, he could turn around… but his heart couldn’t take it… neither could he bear the thought of turning back to find himself blocked in. Better to die moving forwards with a sense of purpose than panicked and trapped. There was no way he could howl for Alec in here.

He was being led deeper, in a way that he could only hope was taking him to the other side somehow, but as it stood he was probably just too terrified to stop his paws.

 _Ration, ration, ration it all._ Went through his head on repeat. He could last better than alphas and betas without food, but that did nothing to assure him he’d have enough.

Water, at least, he could get from ice fallen to the floor. He wouldn’t dare to take it from the walls themselves. Eventually even a wolf would squash a fly that bit too often.

It wasn’t quenching, but he could get by, strung out as he was but dogged with purpose.

Deeper, deeper, darker. Q eventually had to break out his lamp and use some precious oil when he could no longer see.

A few days of suspiciously spherical hole-like tunnels to fall through and Q eventually slipped into open air for a brief moment before thudding onto hard _sharp_ floor. Gasping out a loud wince, Q grasped his lantern and swung it around, only to have his jaw drop.

The ice cave was enormous, beyond belief. Sharp, glittering rocks lay beneath Q’s paws, almost enough to cut them. Shards sliced off the mountain from the glacier’s slow torture. Beyond that, impossibly, Q crept forwards uncaring of his pads for a moment as he took in the dark lake before him.

Daggers of ice seemed to drip from the ceiling or have fallen in and rested, smugly almost, in the liquid that they would become.

“Impossible.” Even his whisper sounded too loud and echoed. The ice seemed to drip, wait, watch him.

Slowly, reverently, Q slunk to the edge and peered into clear but almost black depths, murmuring ‘impossible’ again.

But then, the glacier was in some ways a giant frozen river, maybe it harboured it’s own?

Glancing at the strangely smooth, undulating walls around him, Q couldn’t help feeling that he was in a frozen womb.

Still agog slightly, Q began to oh so cautiously pick his way around the lake how he could, shards of ice and rock jangling lightly under-paw, sometimes leaping from ice to ice or jagged rock and watching the light from his lantern swing wildly around the blue blue walls. Too mesmerised to help himself, the omega spent one rest in the cave, watching the glittering stones and ice until he fell asleep, a certain sense of wonder and yet safety keeping him calm; the ice was less likely to crush him here at it’s heart.

The cavern narrowed swiftly and kept its jewel-like contents whisper secret as Q ventured onwards, upwards again.

The depth of colour lessened and the light gradually brightened over the course of a day. Q could stash away his lantern gratefully on one of the wooden runners of his pack that rested against his flank. The slight up-turn in the frame helped the contraption double as a pull-able frame behind him and was one of his own design. It also came in handy for hanging a lantern off… as long as Q was careful not to smash or scratch it.

After just over a week, Q reckoned, the walls around him shrunk and snow rubble began filling the cracks from small tumbles, making it easier to climb out of the tomb of the glacier finally.

The brightness and bleakness of high plateaus and mountain daylight was a welcome familiarity by now compared to where he’d been. Taking several deep breaths Q allowed himself several moments just to stand and recover form the strangeness of all that lay unknown below. The Thump of his heart seemed strengthened despite his fatigue and he felt closer to James than ever, if exhausted.

He’d done it! The first truly great obstacle. Q breathed out in a proud, relieved huff and swayed slightly in emotion, smiling a little up at the winds and sky.

 _Q one, way home zero. Give it your best mountains._ Q tempted, dared, feeling young and brave and foolishly incredibly invincible for his feat and with a bright laugh, gleeful jump and skip in his step headed towards the rise of the plateau hill to view his achievements… and quite possibly find somewhere to rest very soon.

 

-00Q00-

 

[](http://imgur.com/BuPklie)

 

The days following Q’s journey up the glacier were thankfully back on familiar ground for the, now, rather well travelled wolf.

 _James would be proud_. Q couldn’t help thinking once, longingly, as he stared out of the snow-hole he’d dug himself to sleep in, gradually being covered over by a blizzard.

Thoughts of his mate plagued his mind now; was he well, lonely, happy… coping… healthy? Did he still think of Q? His dreams had evolved to near-constantly involve visions of managing to reach James.

Or, worse. Nightmares where he never made it, or James had come looking for _him_ and suffered, or he reached home only to find James lost, dead, occasionally re-mated or, in one particularly horrific case, furious and disgusted of Q. He’d woken up badly from that one, shouting blindly after the mirage of James’ retreating, disdainful back for a minute of blind panic before the snow in his eyes properly woke him.

Gradually, Q let himself be entertained by running through increasingly unlikely scenarios where James was running towards him over _that_ hill or coming from around _this_ snowdrift… He remembered the past year with Alec and Eve and the others and laughing, joking… He remembered meeting James and their den, their home… He thought about further back, his childhood, racing around the quiet forests with Sherlock, quiet nights in with Mycroft where Q would curl up against his brother in their house and just breathe in the feeling of their own little world… Imagined being able to feel that way again with James if they could get the home they’d nearly had…

Really, Q was lonely, almost crushingly so. He was very aware of being the only thing alive up here, possibly all the way home. For miles around and endless seeming stretches of mountains Q was isolated and utterly, desperately alone.

It was about at the stage that he started muttering to himself in little jokes, ranting a little to Blanca and Lobo, and having small two-way conversations with another half of his brain to keep himself amused that he begun sleeping less and moving on through the night again.

Until he could taste progress or get off the endless flat snow plains onto something that could channel his attention, he was burning the oil in his lantern down pointlessly with every midnight run as he fought on through snowstorms towards the peak of mountain that had glinted at him. The one he was following home.

 

[](http://imgur.com/n45BHp1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed some James and the start of Q's journey! :D
> 
> So a brief announcement... as I'm sure many of you are aware, I have some spelling/grammar issues and often fail to spot all of my own mistakes. I've been lax in ever taking on a beta, due to reasons ranging from shyness to pride. But it really is probably a good idea since a few people have mentioned it detriments their reading enjoyment.
> 
> Soo on the off chance that anyone reading is interested in being a beta for this story I thought I'd ask! But if not, no worries. Um, there's a couple of criteria I'd like in a beta, obviously if you often spot spelling/grammar mistakes that's perfect (UK spelling and grammar, although that doesn't mean you have to be from the UK), ideally you can do a quick turn over on a 3000-5000 word chapter (the same day would be perfect, allowing for timezones), and for me, possibly most importantly of all, that you're a kind beta reader. When it comes to things I've created, I'm afraid I'm incredibly sensitive, so I probably will fail utterly with purely bad feedback xD If someone can let me know parts I've written well, then that's great and I learn woo!  
> So if anyone is interested then please drop me a line on my e-mail: meh_meh_meh_meh_meh@hotmail.co.uk  
> I might ask you to check over the first two chapters before sending a new one, so I hope that's okay :)
> 
> Right! Other than that, no other news! So simply thank you all for reading, and I will see you in a weakfish time with more. Ciao for now!


	3. Threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late guys, just came back from holiday. Happy New Year to you all! May it be filled with great reading and a new Bond film! Awww yeah!
> 
> **WARNING:** For this chapter; predation/hunting and a picture which includes aspects of such/very very mild gore. Just to be on the safe side.

[](http://imgur.com/P9AO4ma)

 

\---

 

The end to his struggles on the high plains of the mountain ended in spectacularly bad style when Q essentially tripped over the edge of the plateau. The near white-out was hard to navigate as it was and Q slipped over an invisible edge convinced there was more ground beneath him.

His paw dropped for feet and by the time the fur-side of his toes landed on ice-blown snow he had lost any semblance of balance with a yelp. With the weight of the pack on his back being caught by gravity and no grip beneath his leading paw his feet slipped out and the wolf was bowled over down the nearly sheer slope.

For long confusing moments of bruising and scrabbling paws, the lantern clacking worryingly on the ice and sparse powder-fine snow, Q tumbled. Breath bouncing out of him and claws scratching for purchase Q finally managed to right himself and cling to the side of the slope with shaking limbs spread and braced for balance.

Q took a much-needed moment to catch his breath, and relished that he was slightly sheltered from the wind after his fall. The sheer slope dropped away beneath him, looking to level out and then drop again down to an astounding sight beneath him.

He’d never seen the ocean. He didn’t even know they _had_ one in the north… no one really knew what was beyond the mountain range. The answer ‘why’ was abruptly clear.

An endless ink of dark ice stretched before him. Mired with great cracks that sank to frozen depths, scattered with snowdrifts, the blue-tinted ebony looked forbidding and mocking as it tempted him across.

Q gulped, looking across from him. The swiftest way to the mountains opposite him; slate, grey rubble rock cliffs, rising to mountainous heights, the way to the path through the mountain… would be to cross the ice.

The mountains themselves curled round in a formidable curve and Q _could_ go that way… but a day loping across the svelte slip of the ice would save him a week of navigating the trips and falls of the ice and snow slopes that crashed down into the frozen water below.

Still, the shear sight of the behemoth of ice-entombed water was so foreign to him that Q’s heart quickened in some fear.

Out there, he had no previous experience to guide him.

But this journey was going on long enough without adding more time onto it. His food supplies were already questionable at best, living on rations that he’d hoped to add to by now. Certainly, there wouldn’t be any prey or even edible plants growing around the snow-clad edge of the sea. But there was just a hope that there was some habitation of some sort within the rocks on the opposite side.

Taking a deep breath, and committing himself to make his final decision when he’d reached the sea level, Q dug his claws in best he could, turned and slipped to where his pack had rolled off him, still attached by the rope that tied the harness he wore to the small sled-like contraption. It was tricky on the severe gradient to get the attaching ropes and straps back in place, especially without the use of his fingers, which he daren’t shift into up here. It was impossible to get the pack and runners onto his back.

It was simple enough on stable ground; Q merely had to gently lift the two halves of the pack out the way –which would fall over his flanks when upright- and then roll onto his back to wriggle his way between the runners comfortably. There were then three straps to deal with, two that buckled into his harness around the neck strap, fiddly to do with his teeth and tongue but Q had the practice to manage, and a final wide belt that ran around his middle. With the slope and the ice however, his sled didn’t have any grip to hold him whilst he attempted the manoeuvre.

After three tries, and getting increasingly worried about the scrape of ice on the thick-yet-delicate glass of his lantern, Q gave up. He stood, braced again, rescuing the lantern between his teeth and contemplating his dilemma. Even as he watched, the sled began to slip downhill and Q had to brace further against its weight. If he attempted walking down the slope, or zigzagging, with that trailing in whatever which way it liked around him he’d become unbalanced. And he’d been lucky with this first fall, feeling battered but not injured. A second time he might not be so fortunate, and if he broke a bone now he was done for.

Morosely Q watched the sled continue to gamely slip down the slope… and paused with thought.

He _had_ designed it to slide after all…

Q quickly did his best to pull the sled back to him and fix the flank-bags back into the protective cradle between the runners. Holding the contraption in place as best he could, making sure the connecting rope was out of the way and clenching the lantern between his teeth deathly tight, Q moved to sit his rump and stomach on top of his pack.

The sled slipped and was saved on course only by his shaking front legs. Heart thumping, Q settled with a bit more care and tried to think calm, positive thoughts as he gradually eased pressure off his paws on the ice.

As first the slide down was halting, painful on his pads with ice friction, and wobbly. It took Q a while to ease into controlling the direction with his paws on the snowier patches and managing to keep going straight. Once more confident with his stability, and getting frustrated with the slow and painful progress, Q lifted his paws away.

The sled shot off and Q screamed in a wolfy howl at the sudden speed and wind whipping tears into his eyes.

Flailing with his paws and throwing out his tail to vaguely balance the craft Q attempted swift brushes onto the ice and snow to add enough friction to avoid lumps or slips to the side. It was panic and adrenaline and Q found himself repeating ‘ _shit shit shit_ ’ in his head as timing to through out his paws and claws.

The sled was barely steerable, turning was a flat out joke, Q’s bulk was ridiculously big for the small pack and their speed was nigh on terrifying going over the ice. Brief screams left him and loud visceral swears that these mountains may never have heard, wind whipping and screaming its own tune in his ears.

The sled finally almost jerked to a slower speed that lurched Q forwards as the snow came back into play. The ground gradually levelled out and Q waited till his speed had calmed slightly on the flat and resistance of snow before risking his stinging paws to draw himself to a gentle halt.

Panting, and shaking, and feeling curiously high on adrenaline, Q turned his head back to look at the ridiculously steep slope that he had scaled in less than a minute.

“Talk about saving time.” He murmured to himself, amazed, a laugh catching his tone at the end. Running his lolling tongue over his snow-sprayed lips for a calming moment Q gathered his breath…

There was only one more slope to go, and abruptly Q couldn’t bear to go one more step at the slow loping walk he’d adopted for the past one and a half months.

“…I reckon I can take it.” Q muttered with conviction, eyes fixed on the waiting slope beneath him. He’d attempted worse, and at least there wasn’t ice on this slope. And otherwise the whole thing could have taken him a day to get down safely. Nodding once, sharply, a stark reminder of how long he’d been in his fur when the unnatural-for-wolves movement slipped out, Q poised himself, and scrabbled inelegantly to the beginning of the slope without getting up.

This time, as he tipped over the edge, Q grinned himself silly and howled out a shout of laughter and joy as the speed caught him again.

Fast, easy, and surprisingly invigorating, Q reached the point where the snow met ice at some speed and uncaringly let himself slide and glide right out onto it for as far as his speed would carry him.

The ice was fairly even and Q bounced a bit and eked out his speed a good few minutes walk from the edge before admitting defeat.

James would no doubt accuse him of carelessness, one should always check ice before walking on it, but Q couldn’t care any more. It felt like he’d cheated progress and even saving a day felt like an achievement. He hadn’t needed to eat, rest, and could merrily go across the ice and reach the other side and potential food and shelter far sooner.

Besides, there was a part of him that suspected that James might have been right by his side racing him.

Some sensibilities he did take into account however, as he got off the sled and checked the straps were secure, checked his lantern was undamaged and still had oil –jaw aching from biting around the handle so tightly.

Even though he could wear the pack again now, he wouldn’t. If he _did_ fall through the ice it would drag him down remorselessly, if it trailed behind him however it both spread the weight and could potentially catch on something to help drag him up.

Done fixing his equipment, Q turned to where he could just see the glimmer of ice at the top of the mountain he was hearing towards, dulling swiftly was what looked like a storm set in, and turned to follow his nose there.

Beyond the half-circle of mountains the ice sea went and stretched on further than Q could see. Briefly he hoped that his glasses had survived the trip, stored safely in his pack.

With that he put his head down and trotted fast as the slippery surface allowed across the ice, hoping he could make it across before the storm blasted in to blind him.

-00Q00-

 

[](http://imgur.com/YKEmpUb)

 

Q didn’t make it across before the storm hit, or before night fell. Throttled with frozen billows of air and ice Q doggedly trotted over the inky black surface of the ice, lantern lit and gleaming below him but not really above. He could make out edges of what could be mountains ahead but could only hope he was headed in the right direction.

He carried on near-blindly without stopping for food or water. Not that there was any. With eyes squinted against the blizzard and howling wind Q continued best he could in what he trusted as a straight line, paws whisper quiet on the ice.

By the time it cleared, snow now falling in gentle fluff-like grace, Q had been blown a bit off course but not as much as he feared. He was closer to the beginning of the true sea now, and in the quiet he could hear the ice groan occasionally. There were also great jagged edges of huge ice floes upended and frozen in place where they’d cracked and crushed or split off from the mountain to litter the frozen water below.

Around one of these, shaking with fatigue and mind spinning with thoughts of food, Q nearly tripped over when he caught the scent of blood in the frozen air.

Instantly salivating, and turning his head to hone in on the scent, Q tried to close off his eager and desperate frantic desire for food and contain his energy in a careful, quiet prowl.

The runners on his sled made whispering noises in the quiet but he could only hope that whatever the strange smelling creature was it was too injure to run or already dead. When he rounded the last cut of ice and saw it, it took Q a while to figure out exactly what it was.

It looked like a fish, yet a big fish, and when he touched it with his nose it was slightly furry. The creature was dead, a _huge_ gaping wound in its side that Q couldn’t quite help but turn uneasily away from.

What even was that big? There was a round, made-looking gap in the ice not far off, and the blood trail led from there to the beast, so Q could only assume it had sustained the injury and escaped from somewhere else before dying on land. Its face was almost similar to that of his own and other predators; domed and with closed forward-facing eyes, lips and whiskers. But it was so rotund and had such odd clawed fish fins instead of feet that Q didn’t know what it really was.

Eventually, the growling of his stomach quelled his uneasy investigation. With a bit of trepidation Q nosed his way into the ready-made bite wound and began worrying at the flesh. The meat was a little frozen on the surface and the parts near the skin almost impossible to get through for fat. He again tried not to think about what could have so easily bitten through the poor beast’s hide.

By the time he’d reached easy to eat and rich in sustenance organs he was head-deep in the carcass and too busy to notice anything else. His stomach was getting pleasantly full but Q was sure he could fit some more in when the fist nauseating bump and shudder came from beneath his feet. Q froze, for a moment, before pulling his bloodied head out and listening for groans in the ice desperately, or the sound of cracking.

Another unsettling bump made him waver slightly, and Q looked down-

_Jaws_.

Q snatched up his lit lantern and scarpered faster than he thought possible on the ice. Something bumped almost playfully beneath him again on the thinner ice and Q whimpered, hurling himself forwards and forwards and forwards, briefly looking down as he passed onto thicker ice and saw a monstrously huge fish-like bulk swerving away from him under the ice, only it’s shadow noticeable.

Skidding to a halt, panting, lantern hanging from his jaws Q scanned the area desperately. Back from where the hole was that his meal had come through, a vast black and white head breached over the water with the most terrifying wailing cry Q had ever heard. The beast sank as Q quailed, tail tucked between his legs and he turned to run back to the snow and rocks where he was supposed to be.

_Let it have its dinner. Do not fight giant huge monster fish. Just run; always run from giant huge monster fish!_

Not sticking around to see whether the behemoth would manage to get it’s dinner back, and feeling abruptly sorry for the creature he’d eaten, who hadn’t been that much bigger than Q. With beasts like that out there Q wasn’t shocked that there were no wolves here.

Still skittering and running across the ice Q panted and made sure not to look back, still hearing waves break over the ice behind him.

The world out here was hardly a friendly place. Q paused to catch his breath as soon as he reached snow, feeling the safety of earth beneath his paws.

The sort of quiet around him felt odd… prickly. For a moment Q thought it was the rush of his close encounter until he suddenly thought of James stilling when he caught sense of another presence near them. He breathed in a deep sniff at the clarity of the though, and met an odd, half familiar musky smell. Jumping up and around Q yelped and scrambled away _again_ as the _giant white_ bear smashed paws to the ground where he’d been seconds before and roared.

Panicked, sled catching on rocks and rubble Q had little choice but to return to the ice, half sobbing, as the bear lumbered out behind him in a rolling gait. His heart thundered and without thinking he headed back towards the ice and carcass, hoping to lose the bear somehow. How had he managed to run into a bloody sea monster and a bear all in one go!

The last time he’d encountered a bear he’d been out of his mind, reeking of pheromones, weak and lucky to survive… And had been saved by Alec…

_Maybe if I had an alpha with me, fuck, don’t think like that, focus!_ Q corrected himself as he scrabbled and caught sight of the bear catching up to him fast in a gallop.

“Lobo help me!” Q cursed, trying to think, to think of anything. He’d not grown up around predators, there weren’t any, but he’d had to learn quickly, they all had.

_Fuck if one of the first things Eve told me was not to run._

Q’s claws skittered around the first blade of ice and he tried to think.

Predators were like wolves, they didn’t attack without reason; something always set them off. Lynx were sneaky and could jump and were agile, hunted or defended themselves, preferred to prey on the weak in the quiet. Bears could eat many things and defended their young, were strong _and_ fast and could back up their bite, could climb, run, swim…

Both were opportunistic, bears certainly would scavenge.

So why had it gone for him when there was a ruddy carcass lying around and much easier? Was it the big fish? Certainly the bear had no problems on the ice. Were white bears worse than the brown ones? Did it not like whatever Q had just eaten…

Wait; there wasn’t much air or scent out here with the cold masking the smell of the kill and no wind. Q himself had only just stumbled across it… but his own face was covered in blood from the softer centre. Without pausing Q turned on his best paw and headed directly to the carcass and, unfortunately, the big fish. The bear was growing bored of the chase behind him and speeding up, Q hoped the ice wouldn’t break as he swung round the corner, narrowly avoided the ice hole, and drew the bear past the dead animal before running on and away.

He heard the creature stop, grunting and roaring angrily, debating original prey for easy meal… and begged himself to be strong and not look back as silence disguised the bear’s intentions. Finally, distantly, he head the sound of tearing flesh. Nearly tripping in relief Q ran on, past where he’d first encountered the bear and onto the safety of snow, up over boulders and rocks until there was enough powder for him to push his face into and rub vigorously.

He rolled and cleaned and licked until he was sure he was free of the worst of the appealing scent of food and hoped that the bear’s occupation with the carcass would give him enough time to get away completely. Or that the fish would eat it.

Struggling on Q’s sled became caught in the rocks and dragged him back down with a sobbed bark of frustration. He almost ripped his pack in the frustration to get into it and the harness quickly, and finally set on his way up.

The rocky mountains gradually closed their slate walls around him as the stormy winds began to pick up again. Q climbed and scrabbled higher until he found a small, narrow fissure in the rocks that he could just squeeze through, but that a bear could not.

It was the closest thing to a den Q had seen in weeks and he sobbed in relief, flumping down and then wriggling to get out of his harness and pack and shaking himself into his skin.

He felt weird in it and almost instantly cold and thin, his fingers hyper sensitive and the gravel hurt digging into the soft flesh of his thighs and arse, calves and toes.

Hurriedly he tore out his glasses from the pack, finding them safe, and held them to his chest with a soft whimper, then put them on, relishing the feel of the thin metal work sliding behind his ears and the familiar chain around his neck. After a moment he then gripped the small pot and water skin as well. If his next journey could involve shelter like this, he could manage the water skin and take more water with him, able to shift occasionally enough to drink from it.

Leaning out the cave Q scraped up what snow he could and set the pot aside to melt slowly, turned off his lantern, and sat quietly sobbing and panting in the cold as he came down from the shock.

It was too cold, really, and he sat with legs in front of him and hands in his lap like a child and shivered, but couldn’t stand to be in his fur for that moment.

There were some times when it was hard to express complex emotions as a wolf, and vice versa. For now, the skin and humanity was a comfort he was pretending to have; an illusion of being safe enough to allow his more delicate skin to be on display. He hadn’t spent much time in his skin for the past year.

Q realised that possibly for the past year he hadn’t felt safe at all. Wondered if he ever would. When all he needed was James but he was so so far away.

The tears burned afresh and Q pulled shaking legs up to his chest and hugged them close, crying as loud as he dared as hopelessness and fright washed over him.

He really was a fool, for ever believing he could do this.

He had already lost everything once, now he’d gone and lost whatever else he’d managed to get back.

But he’d never felt safe, he’d always needed his James… and now he was probably going to die anonymously in the mountains, and never going to see another wolf again.

Whatever else, Q knew he couldn’t bring himself to go back down and across that frozen water. And he didn’t have the provisions to make it back to Alec and the pack.

His only option was to go on, whether he could make it or, increasingly more likely, not.

 

[](http://imgur.com/73spgbx)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem, some pictures in the notes this time, (yes! That's right! MOAR! ;D) So that they didn't clog up the text. The first one possibly/hopefully demonstrates Q's pack a bit better, or supplements the descriptions. It seemed hard to get written down somehow...  
> The second is just some cuteness whilst The Great 00Q Separation continues!  
> (These are paper and pen drawn btw, instead of computer-track-pad drawn, so most differences probably lie there.)
> 
> [](http://imgur.com/ABDUxOV)  
> [](http://imgur.com/gjmrI4x)  
> 
> 
> Thank you oodles for the comments and kudos last chapter, and again if anyone is interested in being a beta-reader please contact me here: meh_meh_meh_meh_meh@hotmail.co.uk the more the merrier!  
> Next chapter in a weakfish (I'm hoping less) See you all then!


	4. Fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On time again yay! Not much to say this week except for;  
>  **WARNING:** Psychological distress in this chapter, claustrophobia.  
>  and; enjoy!

[](http://imgur.com/bZvIE8B)

 

\---

 

“Unbelievable behaviour James, really I think we’ve all had more than enough of this drama of late. Times are tough enough as it is.” Berating, Mycroft did like to berate. Sherlock snorted unceremoniously in the background as James ignored the pair of them, stubbornly ignoring the pain in his limping paw.

“Did I not say that I would alert you should the winds change-

“Seven months. Seven months Mycroft, and I haven’t heard from him.” James growled out finally, eyes fixed ahead of him as he was escorted back from an aborted and nearly suicidal attempt at leaping the passage of Intelligence Pass… maybe he wasn’t intelligent enough to pass. The thought washed hysterically through his mind and James was quite aware he was losing his grip. The grass gradually interspersed snow the lower down the mountain they trudged and the blood splatters his cut foreleg left on the green was just as striking on the white of snow.

He had wanted to see the spring come in with Q.

“Leave him be.” Lestrade kicked in, no doubt to stop a tirade from Mycroft. More than anyone, Lestrade understood the pain James was suffering through.

“How can we, we don’t want to lose another friend.” John muttered audibly enough. His beta pack mate was sympathetic, but not to death wishes.

But they couldn’t understand, even Lestrade couldn’t understand the true depth of his fear and agony.

Seven months, and he hadn’t heard from Q once. It had never been this long before. And the pulse that seemed to calm James sometimes that told him he’d _know_ if Q was dead was weakening increasingly. It felt like he had lost Q, like he was too far and impossible to reach and it had driven James mad with the howling _why_ in his mind.

The thoughts plagued him incessantly like curses from Lobo and Blanca because for all he knew his mate was all but lost to him. Recently he was wondering if the Q he knew and loved and continued to yearn for wasn’t dead.

And the unknowing was crushing what little of him wasn’t honed as pack leader, leaving little behind as James felt himself growing colder and duller by the day.

-00Q00-

Rain had lashed the mountain so fiercely that although Q was dreading the probably long, dark way through its innards, he was relieved at least to be able to dry.

The entrance to the mountain’s belly was large and had clearly been carved by someone, though just who left him stumped.

He’d recovered well enough from his fright on the ice by the next morning, left grim with determination at the knowledge that going on was his only choice. Saving the remaining oil Q had kept his lantern off and collected all the sparse grasses and mosses that he found clinging with bare life to the rocks. At night during the four day climb to the straight edged entrance to the mountain Q wound and bound the grasses and moss into each other tightly until he had a leg-length of thick burning fodder.

The flint stones that sparked against each other to light the oil in his lantern at the click of a out-standing spoke of metal in the clockwork contraption would hopefully be able to catch alight the dried kindling as well. This way, if he ran out of oil, he’d hopefully at least have the ability to see for an extra couple of weeks if he burned the grass frugally. It could mean the difference between life and death.

Food was another matter.

Of all things, Q had found moths. In well-hidden dry cracks they seemed to sleep. Q felt a little bad for munching them up whilst they slept unsuspecting of predation, and spent a lot of time learning to not inhale their dusty wings lest he spend the day coughing, but needs must. The prey he’d hoped for was sadly lacking. But he still had rations… and after the decent meal from the ice and the slightly odd moths he was as well fed as he could be for the tunnels.

Which was a good thing, incidentally.

Q entirely lost count of how long he was in the tunnels for, thankful that at least they had no dead ends. One solitary path leading him the whole way.

It was warmer too, though claustrophobic. Once confident of the constant path ahead of him, Q often left his lantern off entirely, able to feel the walls on either side of him and simply dealing uncaringly with rises, falls and rocks as they came about.

He lost himself to the monotony of his drudging steps. The path was endless and without a concept of time Q walked and walked until he was nearly asleep with fatigue or burning with hunger.

The darkness pervaded into his thoughts until Q wasn’t sure if he was terrified of it, sick of it, or thankful for it’s numbing effect.

He was slightly concerned of how unconcerned he was growing towards split claws and stubbed paws, twisted and scraped legs from sudden rises and falls.

The first time he lit the lantern in two weeks was too much and terrifying and he quickly fumbled it off with filthy looking fingers as he indulged in skin-time.

The imprint of his too-bony long fingers caked with dried blood and ingrained dirt flickered on his eyelids until he swiftly shifted to his fur and curled up.

Would James even want the shadow of a wolf that crept out of this journey if he did ever make it home?

-00Q00-

The endless days of darkness dragged on and on until Q half wanted to just curl up and die because they never seemed to end. He was plodding along lethargically, eyes closed as he contemplated just walking until he died when freshness of air caught at his eyes and something lighter highlighted his eyelids.

Snapping his eyes open in shock Q bounded forwards as the light grew around a corner and tumbled right out of the tunnel into snow-ice- _bright_ light!

Squeezing his eyes shut against the light and ears falling back against the roar of wind Q backed up into himself in his hurry to turn and scramble out of the bite of wind and cold and white. Back inside the moderately darker and sheltered entrance to the mountain path Q cowered and curled into himself, half frightened of the burning light on his dark-accustomed eyes.

It took him a good long while to come out of the dreamlike state the tunnel had left him in, and to be able to bear the light. Even so his eyes watered irritably as he braved the cold of the outside world again. Finally, the sight gave him a breath of relief.

He’d half thought the world had faded whilst he’d been trapped underground. Now it felt like shadows and dust were being blown away from his mind with the cutting wind.

He stood on a narrow snow ledge that stood high over a churning crashing river dotted with ice a dizzying way below. Squinting down-stream into the snow Q wondered if it led to the sea he had crossed… in which case, had enough time passed for spring’s thaw to reach this far north? He turned to look the other way, down the gully separated by the river. He couldn’t see above the sheer-looking rock face on the other side of the gorge that rose high into the sky, and the river’s path twisted round a corner among the mountains… but he wondered, possibly, if this was the start of the same gully that led to the ice ridges of Intelligence Pass…

The thought caught in his throat and at first he couldn’t help the worried whine as he scanned around desperately looking for a way down. But he couldn’t cross that river, not without the frozen ice saving him from the torrent. Had he left it too late? Missed his chance to get home by weeks as the ice melted?

How could he be so close and yet taunted with being too far away? Certainly he’d gone about a month north, he had no idea if he still had a month of south to go before making it home, but he knew that the path should be surely within the rock face opposite him. That was how it had looked from Blanca’s Rise, as he’d taken to calling the ice needle he’d seen the view from. He hadn’t been able to tell that the mountain he’d just trudged through and the one opposite him weren’t simply the same beast.

Heart beating in a frantic panic at the thought that he had reached a point of no return, or had gone wrong somewhere, it took Q a while to see the bridge.

The white shape was almost shrouded in the snow and Q approached it cautiously and then with shock.

This journey was made possibly only through chance the entire way it seemed.

A great chunk of the opposite cliff had fallen away at some point, and it must have been vast once, but was now smoothed slightly by the wind and covered in snow and ice where it lay wedged between the two mountains.

The other wolves crossing had been terribly lucky to find such a place. However they had found it.

Hope, such a dwindled source in Q’s supplies since the frozen sea, rekindled with a determined spark and Q licked his lips and narrowed his eyes on the ice bridge before him.

_I’m coming James. Just wait a little longer for me._

A month travelling south, if that’s what it came to, seemed nothing in comparison to what he’d conquered already.

Even so, he tread carefully as he crossed the slippery pathway, wind whipping and snapping at his paws and snow sliding on ice to unfoot him. The way was uneven and so challenging in places that Q had to stop, clinging on to any purchase he could and praying not to fall.

_Lobo don’t give up on me now._ Q begged to the archetype of adventure and ambition, and forced himself to carry on and not look down as wind shrieked around him.

At the other side Q rolled onto the snow and licked it in wolfy kisses gratefully. The way became apparent once again, as it was wont to do in its fickle stages. Q shuddered at the thought of going back into the darkness of the caves and tunnels again, and knew he was nearly out of food. He was also feeling close to home for the first time since he’d last heard James’ voice.

That alone gave him strength, but he still allowed himself a day to restock on melting water and curl just in the entrance of the tunnel where he could still see light. His paws, once cream, were filthy, and Q dreaded at the state of himself. Allowing the day to be spent resting and rolling in snow, licking himself clean even if there was little point in it given what he’d be going back into, left Q feeling a little better in himself.

Progress, he had actually made progress.

He was still alone, and he was hungry on meagre rations of dried meat strips. He expected they’d run out soon, actually.

But he was close, so close now, and he couldn’t give up yet.

-00Q00-

He’d run out of food. He’d run out of water. The only way Q could drink was thanks to the condensation and occasional trickles of water descending through the mountain. Whilst spending the last few minutes licking the wall Q tried to keep his panic at bay.

He could go for a week without food, right? He did it in his heats unless he remembered to chew on a bone he’d brought in. Usually he didn’t.

So Q thought he could survive this. He still had water. Of a sort.

But it was fraying at his nerves.

The path had headed nothing but up and he’d needed the light to not break a bone on the clammy steps. The ceiling was too low to walk in his skin, so he couldn’t use his fingers to help grip and navigate the tumbles of rock. He’d cut his skin anyway, and with an infection he was done for.

Q forced himself to sleep, or at least still, whenever he thought it might be night. He couldn’t risk losing energy by pushing on. But nightmares plagued him and insecurities kept him awake.

His mind wasn’t very focused, could be the hunger, but his body felt tight and itchy too at the ongoing enclosed space.

It was an attempt in futility not to pretend not to notice it, but the tunnel was getting narrower.

He’d never make it back to Alec and the others, and if he tried what then? There was only the other tunnel to navigate and he wouldn’t make that either on no rations. Eventually Q gave in to his desperation and ate the grass he’d saved for his lantern.

It didn’t sit well, but he managed not to throw it back up.

Two sleeps after that he ran out of oil.

Alone, in the dark, in the quiet, with no option of food or light, Q shook and stumbled his way blindly up. It had to end eventually, didn’t it? Blanca had gotten through, after all, he could do it too…

_That was years ago. Rockslides happen everyday up here._

Whining, gritting his teeth and trying not to all out cry because he both needed the water and hated hearing the suffocating echo of his own loneliness, Q scrambled on.

Five sleeps since loosing his light, Q dragged himself lethargically forward, dizzy, shivering, shaking, and his nose-head-chest smacked into a wall.

Q took a moment to collect himself, shaking his head, and felt around to his sides, imagining he’d missed a corner.

As it was, it took him a while to notice the change in air above him.

Ears and nose twitching in his blindness, Q shoved his snout up at the feel of a droplet of water. The source was just above his head, a bare cling of ice water onto a crack between two rocks…

“Oh no, oh no oh _shit_!” Voice caught into a strangled sob Q backed up onto his hind legs and shifted into his skin, feeling with numb fingers desperately, breath beginning to heave.

The wall before him was smooth, untouched, the rock to his sides the same, above him, in the slightly canted direction of the wall in front, debris clogged what could only be the pathway out.

If there was water this high up it meant ice or snow melting down. Of course the way out would cover itself this high in the mountains, rocks tumbling in with the erosion of water and time. But how many feet of rocks were there? How much snow and ice beyond that? How much of the tunnel was left beyond this point?

“What bloody fool engineered this?” Q cried out, hit the rocks, hit them again, scrabbled at the edges and caught a small one and _pulled_. Rocks and dust drowned his yelp and for a moment Q thought he was crushed or drowning, coming around coughing and gasping.

Thoughts of being in a rockslide before flashed into his head, the memory of James telling him about the death of his family to the same. Q shifted painfully into his fur and shook off the tumble of slate, stood in the narrower tunnel and pushed his face so close to the crack that if light were nearby he would see it.

Nothing.

For a moment, Q couldn’t breathe. After that he started screaming, hurling himself at the wall above him and attacking it with teeth, claws, fingers as he shifted back and forth and shouted at the top of dry lungs.

“ _Fuck_ if I’m going to die here! You can’t make this happen now! You _bastards_! I’m not going to die alone in a _bloody cave_! For fuck’s sake _move_ you _bastards_!” Q cursed and sobbed and shrieked as he shifted into fur for good and _dug_ into the ceiling and surrounds with great, uncoordinated swipes and scratches, screaming them down and then hurling himself again at the crack.

He could feel it groaning and shifting and Q didn’t give a damn if it crushed him because panic had teeth in his mind and all he could do was fight _fight_ and scream and-

Rocks crumbled and crushed down around him again and Q Howled in manic, desperate achievement, making some odd form of a wolf-laugh as he stood on back legs to drag the rubble back down the way he’d come from with his front.

“That’s right you bastard, let me at you, I don’t give a damn if you’re older than me I’m _bloody_ tenacious!”

Uncaring of the nonsense battle cries streaming from his mouth Q managed to clear enough room to get under the exit again, he had to scramble over two large rocks to get there and balance precariously but soon could get back to stamping at the ceiling with his forepaws.

“You’re not going to _stop, me, now_!” His grunts were timed with strikes and dust falling and soon his words turned back into snarls and screams again as he scratched down the ceiling.

Rocks large and small smacked into his face and bruised him and he couldn’t give up. With one more shout and barging at his trap with all the power he could thrust into his bruised shoulders the mountain gave way with a great crack and wash of pain.

Q lay gasping, stunned dumb, smothered with ringing ears in cold heavy snow and sharp crush of rubble.

Somehow, head hanging down one side of the pile of destruction he had rendered, Q could still breathe. But his entire body was coated in far too much snow and fatigue was gripping him now enough to shake him.

Panting, unthinking, Q struggled as much as he could once, twice, and on the third time felt a give around his back legs.

He managed to kick them free and pull himself from the crush, tumbling down the tunnel when his legs gave out and slipped on the snow. He had to lay breathing for a while, still in the dark, still so dark.

So _tired_.

Eventually the exhausted omega dragged himself to his feet and moved to the snow filling his escape route. His paws scratched some down only to sob when more swiftly filled its place.

“Oh Blanca please, oh Lobo _fuck_ ,”

_I’m not going to get out. I’m going to die…_

Even in his mind his voice turned to a whimper and Q trembled as he scratched again at the snow, first cautiously as it refilled, and then franticly, desperately, crying and whining and panting.

Snow snow _snow_ filled in around him and Q chocked and gagged and cried and began senselessly forcing his head up and through the cold weight and his body.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think he had to get out _get outgetOUT_!

The snow was going to crush him or drown him and he’d never make it out he _had_ to make it out he had to get to James…

He _really_ needed to see his James.

Struggling with a whine with the body he’d so foolishly forced into the however many feet of snow when he was as weak as this Q was expecting anything but the sudden give of it and for his shoulders and head to break free.

Wind howled more flurries of snow into his face as he dragged in air, eyes shut against even the grey storm light.

It was hard to breathe with over half his body constricted under snow.

Slowly, achingly, Q managed to move and slip and force up one paw. Heaving and sinking and shaking Q pulled the other free and gasped for air before attempting to drag the rest of his weight from his early grave.

With monumental effort Q managed to haul himself out in a gasped push and collapsed two paw lengths away to pant and gasp into the snow, legs useless beneath him.

Above and around him there was light and the air was alive. Q’s cracked-open eyes stared into the snow-swirling sky depths until the moment sleep caught his dizzy soul.

He was brought round in shivers not long after, there was still light in the sky and the storm was gaining speed. Out here on the half-bowl-like slope there was no shelter and he was in no shape to survive that. Lifting his heavy head Q thought he could just make out, through the glimpses of storm around him, the imposing, slightly mockingly respectful tilt of Blanca’s rise thousands of meters away and worlds apart.

_So you made it_. It seemed to say. _Do you feel strong now little wolf?_

“No,” Q whispered, imagining it laughing at him for attempting something that only wolves who, by all accounts on both mountains, had some sort of beyond-natural status. Some qualities that normal wolves, or at least today’s wolves, failed entirely to possess. “But I _did_ make it.”

_Then that’s good for you_. Snow obscured his vision and Q closed his eyes.

He was too tired to care about conversing with mountains in his mind, too tired to be glad he had made it. He felt lighter for some reason, and a glance to the hole he’d fought his way out of, just about marked by a jut of rock, revealed the shattered and torn remains of his pack sled and harness, ripped apart from him and destroyed from the crush and squeeze. He was too tired to analyse if his own body was much the same way.

Pushing forwards on shaking front legs, Q nosed through the wreckage to find his somehow, somehow safely protected glasses. A soft cry caught his throat roughly, quietly, as the young wolf delicately took the folded frames and glass between his teeth and drew them closer between his paws.

Everything in his mind was slow and his body thrumming in a way that warned of severe pain tomorrow, but he took a moment to press his nose into the glass and sniff, pretending he could smell James there.

Even that couldn’t bring the joy he should feel at having made it so far. Enough, he’d just had enough. Q was rung dry to the bone and had little left to give except the subconscious knowledge that shelter meant life right now. With a breath Q slipped his nose under the glasses’ chain to get it round his neck, rolled onto his belly, and looked at the sharp curve above him…

There, glinting in that odd, odd way that had guided him all this way, was the peak that had lead him this far.

It wasn’t a senseless shape; instead carved with a domed top and tree-like columns of ice in support, standing on top of the peak of the mountain not far.

Wordlessly Q got to his paws, drawn by need alone, and began to stumble his way there through the thick snow.

It was tough, and had Q been at normal strength the steep curve of snow that led to the mountain’s ridge would have probably been easy. Right now it was the sheerest, deepest snowed obstacle his tired mind and body had ever encountered.

After several attempts that were one weak pounce forward, two wolf-length snow-slides back, Q had cleared and clawed enough snow to fight his way over the top. There he again looked at the grand ice structure and stumbled up the easier slope and final rocks towards it.

It was a pinnacle, and as Q’s paws first touched and hauled himself up onto the ice floor, he didn’t know what to think.

This journey had shown him more than he believed possible for a wolf to see, sights he hadn’t been able to understand appearing before his eyes… What lay before him held a different kind of wonder and reverence than the things he’d seen so far.

In front of him, the multitude of pillars blocked out the wind, leaving only a quiet sort of chiming around them and the brush of wind more like a caress. He said them because, on the floor that held odd cut patterns and arrangements, lay the bodies of two wolves.

He couldn’t move closer, no wolf should disturb the unknown dead in disrespect, but the space wasn’t large, and he could easily see them from the other side of the ice den, unable to tear his eyes away.

The wolves were large, their coats faded in colour from endless time and only slightly threadbare from it. Certainly they were bigger than Q.

One was white as snow, the larger one, and a subtle variation of the shade on the overcoat. The other darker, smaller, more slender, with light patches on the eyes, some paws, belly to tail tip. Together they were curled around each other, locked in eternal embrace.

_Love_. Q’s mind supplied, sitting down numbly.

He couldn’t really think who they were, how long they’d been here, why they chose to come here together to die. For that they must have, both wolves were old with grey on their care-worn muzzles, the slight twisted nature of used bones that young wolves didn’t have.

Before them, Q felt impossibly child-like. He curled up opposite the strange wolves, eyes still transfixed, and ignored that the ice held a strange light and that the bodies were mysteries unto themselves, and just let himself curl up in the lit quiet, feeling protected by the sleeping guardians of it’s silence. Visitor to a world no wolves save two were ever meant to know.

 

[](http://imgur.com/QMx7w3X)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos last chapter, they really mean the world to me n_n  
> Q's nearing the end of his travels now, so you can look forward to a bit of the comfort side of H/C next time :)


	5. Return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that this might be the chapter we've all been waiting for... so, enjoy!

[](http://imgur.com/GcSOZwk)

 

\---

 

Endless snowscapes had been Q’s only accompaniment for the last week. He was still high up in the mountains, and thankful of the constant water source and gradually north-migrating animals at this time of year. It must be close to summer, and Q had actually screamed for joy when he saw the first snow rabbit in what seemed like forever and had galloped after it like a foolish pup. The poor petrified rabbit had probably never seen such a pathetic hunting attempt and ran away more in fear of catching lunacy than actual predation.

Q had cursed himself and flumped down in the snow dispiritedly. He was _starving_. He was _tired_. Each paw step felt weighted and sluggish and it was no wonder he’d lost the rabbit on his trembling legs.

He’d been walking for a week, and had thankfully managed to catch a rather old and gamey ermine since his first disastrous attempt. It wasn’t a lot, and not nearly enough, but it tasted better than anything Q could remember eating and was keeping him upright and moving. As were the end of the storms. The sunshine and clear skies raised his fragile spirits along with just the familiarity of it all.

He _knew_ that he was back on his way home. He could spot the familiar tops of mountains, though he’d never been up so high in the territory, certainly with so little snow, and scents just seemed familiar in a way that was hard to describe.

Occasionally the sheer, staggering euphoria of it kicked him so hard in the chest that he had to run or shout and howl, bounce and dance and chase his tail around like a giddy puppy or cry joyful hysterics that were always slightly nervous. The euphoria was better than food for motivation, but as he tumbled around the slopes with a dizzy head he was quite aware that he wasn’t making the best decisions anymore. Running around when he’d not had enough food to walk, for example.

It wasted valuable energy but the buoyancy for having _done_ it, _got_ this far made it phenomenally hard to give a damn. And if he could get to James… get _back_ … then what would fatigue and hunger matter?

And if he maybe ran a bit more, and ate and slept a bit less, and became increasingly aware that there wasn’t a shred of wasted meat on his almost too underfed yet scarily honed body, and that he was maybe a bit of an emotional wreck, then he pushed it to the back of his mind.

All he had to do was get home. He could do it now, he truly could! And the pulse in his blood and soul that pushed him to find James had never beat stronger in his veins. He was tired, but he was close, oh so achingly close. And the gut pull to his mate kept driving him punishingly on long after Q decided to try ignoring his increasingly frequent collapses and dizzy spells.

Every time he slept, Q could barely stand it, when he was so close to James, so driven on his mate never having to sleep alone again if Q could just make it through another few nights of toil.

So after a week of travelling, and anticipating far longer still, give his month travelling confusedly North at the beginning, Q was stunned himself when he trotted to stand on a rise and looked down an old slope that was home. Without a shadow of a doubt. It was high up, but he knew it! This was where James had walked him around to show the territory when they moved into their new den.

Almost too giddy and stunned for a moment to think Q gaped at the sun-struck patches of snow, grass truly taking over the mountain, and beyond that, the vista of the MI6 mountain range and beyond that the world he knew.

“Fuck.” Q murmured for one moment, voice hoarse and caught in a squeeze between a laugh and overwhelmed. The next heartbeat Q was jumping to the very edge of the small mound he stood on and threw back his head to howl louder than he had in his life.

_“JAMES!”_

-00Q00-

Another day, unimaginative as the last. James had been scratching with a maudlin lack of enthusiasm at the bare patch of grass around the main slope of his pack after a dull meeting with Tanner about _blanket supplies_. He couldn’t give less of a damn. The pack knew it well enough, but no one dared challenge him yet. In fact, his remorse seemed to lend him loyalty, for all that it seemed to matter little to him.

He hadn’t tried to howl for Q for a month. He couldn’t bear the lack of response.

He’d given up, but it was still so painful and raw, and now guilt-ridden, that he couldn’t accept this decision either. The one thing he had always promised himself was that he wouldn’t give up on Q, would always be with him in whatever way he could… The alpha hadn’t thought he was a man to go back on his words, and the effect of the fact that he had cut nearly as deep as loosing Q. That his closest allies had essentially labelled him a flight risk and kept constant tabs on him was smothering and did not help.

Tanner was with him now, looking on with worry at his lethargy. The others weren’t far away; this was a busy time of year. James was supposedly digging the entrance paths to ease accessibility when he heard it.

His ears twitched up in recognition first and his heart caught up faster than his head as he pricked his ears…

_“JAMES!”_

_…Q?_

Everything paused for a split second as a whirlwind roared in his mind and then James was throwing up his muzzle desperately and howling for his life.

“ _Q_! _Q_!” There was an answering howl and James could hardly breathe to believe it because that was _close_ , that was _home_. Without pause James turned and bolted up-slope through the stunned wolves around him as he’d never run before. He howled as he ran, voice loud but wavering with movement as he shouted out _Q_ and _home stay I’m coming stay stay_ without saying a word.

And Q was howling back with his voice crisp and ecstatic and breakingly beautiful as James tore up-hill fast as his paws could carry him.

 

-00Q00-

Q howled James’ name until he couldn’t bear it anymore and cut off with a whimper of longing as he leapt of his snow rise and raced downhill towards his mate, his James here and whole and-

Q dashed down a hill towards the oncoming howl and suddenly _there_ against the grass and snow was pale yellow and Q might have screamed as he sprang into the air and collided into James’ ridiculously perfect and close face as the alpha leapt for him too. They slammed into each other rather hard and rolled in a pile of wriggling fur and limbs as the pair of them frenetically nuzzled each other unable to control themselves. It was scent and it was feel and it was _so damn right_ and Q was laughing, crying, whining and mewling as he rubbed and rolled. James’ fur and body pressed against him warmly and the older wolf’s tongue was licking, teeth biting in need and desperate reunion as he growled his fear and disbelief out and whined his joy.

Together they shifted seamlessly into skin, clinging to each other with so much touch that Q gasped after so long without it and the feel of warm muscle against his own and hot skin under his clutching fingers and James _hands_ grabbing him tightly and lips kissing into his hair with words that thanked Lobo, Blanca and every wolf since the dawn of time and it was so much that Q twisted into fur again to howl as he buried nose into James’ fur, the alpha shifting with him again like a rehearsed dance.

Together they clung and clung and _clung_ and Q, in his skin, mindlessly throwing out any gratitude and swear that came into his head finally pulled James’ face into his vision and just stopped, stunned at the feel of skin and stubble beneath his finger tips, tears blurring his eyes and a splitting smile on his face.

“I found you.” Chocked out of his mouth and James’ astounded, almost woundingly happy, disbelieving face crinkled into slight wrinkles and blue eyes locked on his own.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” Fingertips traced Q’s own cheek, hairline. “Lobo I missed you, I thought you, Q… fuck.” And no more elegantly than that they were in their fur again and James’ forelegs were locked tightly around him as he flattened Q to the floor and licked all over his eyes in a way so familiar Q’s heart nearly burst with joy that overwhelmed all the aches, all the pain, all the loneliness and fears he’d been through for the past year. And the agony of his long journey alone dissipated like a flurry of snow and he was just laughing and crying as he squirmed against James just to feel the solid _present_ weight of him.

He was almost too dizzy with it to breathe when their solitude was cut short by a staggered exclamation from just below them.

“ _Q_?” They sat up, without parting, and Q looked into more shockingly familiar faces he hadn’t expected to see again.

“T-Tanner, John…” His eyes swung further to take in the gaping, truly speechless form of his middle brother, looking for once like he had been too blindsided to be witty. The other two betas were little better. “Sherlock,” He whispered, the beta making a few abortive, terribly confused moves forward, backwards. Q felt James’ fur nudge further against his own and beyond the slight dip in the slope appeared another figure.

“Bloody hell, I didn’t believe it.” Lestrade. Q was about to say his name in slightly stunned greeting – he hadn’t really even believed at times he was going to make it to James, never mind every other wolf he’d left behind… Like he’d now left Alec without bringing him home, another close friend and Q felt a disturbing burst of sadness that the wolf who had grown into his closest friend couldn’t be here, might think him dead or worse… He resolved to howl until Alec knew and that he had to tell James every scrap he could on the man’s pack brother. James nosed into him slightly as if sensing the shock setting into his mate.

“Q?” He turned as if to offer an assurance but was disturbed for a final time by another, larger wolf nearly lumbering over the blind side of the slope.

“ _Mycroft_.” Q whispered, voice caught as he stared at the brother who’d had a fair hand in raising him, who he’d never learnt the fate of and never quite forgiven himself for. But there he was, still slightly rotund for all he was a tall wolf and regarding Q with intelligent, unsurprised eyes as he smiled.

“There you are, little one.” The soft tone brought Q to whining and he darted forwards a few paces, paused and turned to run back into James’ fur when he couldn’t bear to part from him even a bit so soon. Almost absorbed into James’ eagerly receptive body, Q looked back again with a stunted motion to move again.

“Come on,” James nudged, voice a little gruff in emotion amidst the slight laughter around them from the omega’s antics. Together they moved to the other wolves, and when they were close enough and Mycroft’s ears flicked in welcome Q whined again and sped into his brother’s legs, burying his head between them and into thick fur with a soft cry. Mycroft sat and drew paws around him and they nuzzled and held on to each other for the first time since the start of Q’s Run. The other wolves broke their standstill at last and came closer with enthusiasm.

Sherlock barked and bowled the pair of them over and Q breathed in deep and let himself be nearly flattened. John’s snout nudged into his own and Q licked him because he was so happy, the other beta looked pleased and nuzzled him back. Lestrade buffeted him genteelly and Tanner pounced in surprising enthusiasm. Q brushed against them all and relished in the feeling –nearly overwhelming after the amount of time he’d been alone for- of being cared for, missed, _safe_. James barrelled in again with a bark, tail up, and Q play growled before he could think about it and then they were chasing each other over the slope through snow and grass and tangling together more often than chasing and rolling until Mycroft stepped in and cleared his throat when Q panted a bit in exertion, laughing but fumbling a bit to get his shaking body upright. James was beside him in an instant, a comforting memory of support. They fitted together slightly differently now. Q had grown into his legs finally, nearly the same height as the alpha, though thinner by far.

“You alright?”

“Fine, more than fine.” They paused a moment, looking into each other’s eyes, and brought their noses together for some calmer licks.

“I believe the pack is growing restless, and that there is a long talk required that might be best done over food.” Ever the voice of reason, Mycroft. Sherlock snorted a bit but didn’t protest; insatiable curiosity evidently peaked. Q abruptly didn’t want to talk at all, rather find out what he’d missed.

But the sound of food was more appetising than any of that, seconded by the loud growl from his stomach.

“Come on, let’s go home.” James coaxed, grinning in fond amusement when Q flicked his ears bashfully at his belly’s grumbling. The word home soothed muscles he hadn’t known were knotted.

“Home sounds… perfect,” Q trailed off a bit helplessly and James nuzzled him for a moment before tilting his head in invitation to move. Q followed easily, not wanting to even blink for fear of missing his mate for a moment. It was as if he’d never felt so relaxed in his life.

Q leaned on James as much as he walked and they remained unable to keep their eyes off each other for long as   
Mycroft lost control of keeping conversation to the den and a barrage of questions began piping up.   
“How did you get here?” John asked.

“Not over the mountains surely, there’s no path. M looked extensively.” Tanner interrupted with, astonished.

“Who cares about the details, let’s get the poor man some food there’s nothing to him.” Lobo bless Lestrade.

“I expect you’ll want a decent report of your own too, there’s more than a little you missed whilst out gallivanting.” Astute as ever, and knowing his little brother far too well, Sherlock smirked, eyes scanning over Q’s body in a way that suggested he’d amassed a wealth of facts already.

“Please everyone, we can surely keep the interrogation till we have reached more, comfortable facilities.” Mycroft grumbled, almost absurdly at ease with these wolves as he navigated some tricky rocks. Q strolled over them without really thinking about it, and paused for James to get through behind him, finding his alpha’s gaze quirked in wonder again.

“What?”

“You’re more sure of paw than you used to be, you didn’t even look down.” It blindsided Q a bit, to remember himself from where he was agile, certainly, but still growing into a lanky body and learning where his paws landed. Of course, through his treks, especially having to learn to trust his own paws for weeks of darkness, the rocks seemed so absurdly simple he’d half forgotten ever being so cautious.

“Well, I’ve had to be.” Q replied with, a bit baffled and flattered by it all, James looked over him again with a smirk gracing his lips.

“You’ve grown too.” The alpha bent to sniff up the length of Q’s leg and without pause the omega felt himself come over hot and wanting, muscles tingling. James eyes betrayed he was affected the same, until John bumped into them good-naturedly.

“Come on you two, make eyes when we’re inside alright?” They flicked ears and blinked a bit, absurdly bashful when they’d been as intimate as they had… but over a year was a long time.

“You look beyond all reason.” Q admitted with a shy but coy demeanour, head ducked secretively so only James could hear as they moved on. James licked his lips briefly, eyes darkening lustfully at the teasingly submissive duck to Q’s head and grinned as he stood tall with the praise, tail rising absurdly high as he buffeted into Q and remained close.

And Blanca how he’d missed this, that feeling of secure wanting and being wanted. Q closed his eyes for a bit as they walked, snout deep in James’ ruff and simply trusting the alpha to guide them.

Down at the flatter area around the main den the small group were accosted by a pack of wolves. Q saw shocked faces and joyous ones and then several wide, frenzied eyes met his and charged.

_Alphas_. Q’s mind supplied briefly and he jumped a pace forwards assertively, the move second nature as he stood to his full height with a lip-curling snarl, hackles raised and tail high. There was an identical growl from next to him and Q’s eyes flickered over to see James standing in exactly the same position as him as the overwhelmed alphas skidded to a swiftly broke halt before them.

“S-sorry boss.” One of them stammered, the three others were looking between Q and Bond’s snarling faces with wide, shocked eyes. Further back the other wolves were muttering and there were even some laughs. Q flicked an imperious ear.

“Better.” Q intoned, and then swung when he heard James saying the same thing. The alpha was turned to him, speechless as well… It occurred to Q that the wolves hadn’t been calling him boss, but James. He’d gotten so used to controlling alphas and omegas and being a pack leader best he could the last year that it had come second nature to him.

“You too?” Q asked lightly with an impressed smile. James still looked faintly gobsmacked, but hungry.

“You need to tell me everything.” The alpha murmured, voice astounded and warm and self assured and Q wanted nothing more than to run and roll with him, but remembered food was apparently going to be coming his way soon. The omega nodded in response, but before heading on James turned to his pack.

_Blanca but I've mated a pack leader_. Q had never even thought much about it before, but could quite easily admit that he was going to be the last to complain about it. Given the desire to laugh and the heat creeping deliciously up from his toes at seeing James stand so confidently in front of a large pack, easily controlling them, Q thought he might be a little bit infatuated all over again.

“As you can all see, my mate has managed to find his way home. I’m sure you all have questions, but for now… Give us space if you know what’s good for you.” Q was a bit surprised, had thought that there would be a demand for information, but instead the wolves around him were chuckling at the alpha’s wry tone, and he had to remind himself that MI6 had never been particularly conventional. Or maybe he was just used to different conventions? There was an atmosphere of relaxation however that hadn’t been present in his last visit.

James nodded at his pack and turned to lead the way, Q bounced after him eagerly, despite feeling a bit faint again, slightly in wonder at his mate’s easy leadership, and dashed his brain through what he must have missed of his alpha’s life.

He received a few eager noses and wagging tails along the way from half remembered acquaintances until they reached the quieter ground before the main den.

Q had to pause however, when he saw the gaping mouth of an entrance into another mountain, even one he knew, the daylight only pervading in so far. Cold seemed to wash out the heat of his body.

“Q?” James questioned, turning back to him in concern. A nervous little laugh caught the younger wolf’s throat and he tried and failed to force himself back into the darkness, remembering being trapped, being sure he would die.

“Hey, what is it?” James was by him now, nose next to Q’s ducked one and the omega offered an apologetic tail wag of self-depreciation.

“Sorry.” Why did he always have to introduce James to his worst moments so quickly? “Could we, maybe not go underground?” James appeared confused, as did the others, and looked back and forth a few times. “It’s been a very long journey.” He offered as a supplement, not really wanting to delve into his newest fear in front of everyone.

“Which is why I want to get you sat in the warm with food… would it help if we brought some lanterns?” Q blinked at the simple, practical solution and James’ concerned, eager to assist eyes.

“Yeah, that would probably help.” He breathed out, and James came to sit by him as he nodded Tanner and Lestrade ahead to light the way. Q took a while to settle himself down, but managed to sit after a couple of minutes. The peace and calm of the moment snuck up on him, and as his initial ecstatic energy died down Q felt himself slipping into contented, if overwhelmed fatigue. James was warm against him and smelt like home and the emotion nearly snared his throat as he twisted his head to meet James’ eyes, finding the alpha regarding him in a similar light.

“Ready when you are.” Wordlessly they stood at the call from the now lighted entrance, and Q kept his eyes fixed on James’ steady ones as he stumbled a bit going in to the mountain. It was light enough, and huge enough that he didn’t feel so trapped. They meandered through, the other wolves chattering and James occasionally rebuffing with something that usually made most of them laugh and Mycroft scowl in an unimpressed manner.

Q let it wash over him, mesmerised by every familiarity they walked by and the voices around him. It seemed very strange after his lonely trek. Surreal.

“Here, this will do.” Mycroft announced as they arrived in the main den room where M’s raised rock sat, now the ground in front was littered with plush, soft furs and lanterns much like Q’s were hanging around the wall and placed on the floor.

He sat down with a deep breath, not even making it to the furs, and simply looked on for a moment as everything slowly started to hit him.

 

[](http://imgur.com/B0xWB0K)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 00Q-togetherness pictures can now occur, woohoo! I've missed drawing fluff piles x3  
> Thank you for the comments and kudos last chapter, they were absolutely lovely and seemed particularly amusing this week!  
> This is just the start of 00Q's reunion of course, and James will have more POV next time, as well as some much needed TLC occurring.


	6. Safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a day late, but I hope to continue Sunday updates next week.

[](http://imgur.com/z247mnF)

 

\---

 

James trotted into his meeting den and watched the others shifting and pulling on robes or more complex clothes, going to gather food or start lounging in barely disguised eager anticipation. He shifted himself, noticing for the first time the lack of a presence glued to his side. Turning, he saw Q sitting with a slightly numbly stunned and overwhelmed expression as his green eyes stared into the room. His heart thumped with the distance that had been between them, all they now didn’t know, but still found it the easiest thing in the world to move over and run his fingers deep as he could into the matted, dirty and worn fur on Q’s head and cheeks.

The younger wolf started slightly as James rubbed thumbs under the base of his still-soft ears.

“Skin, Q.” He suggested, reading the held-back exhaustion too easily in his mate’s slightly wide eyes. Q met his gaze and focused himself before shifting and standing before the other man.

He couldn’t help but breathe out as his eyes drifted over the pale body before him, hands still trapping Q’s face.

The omega had grown, nearly as tall as him, though he was so thin and lean that James could just about count ribs. There wasn’t a scrap of wasted flesh on his almost painfully honed body. Even though he was too thin and everything in the alpha howled to cover him up and feed him, he looked damn good on the eyes. For the moment, James forced himself not to dwell on the cuts and the bruises, the slight twist to limbs that spoke of long overuse and stiff, braced muscles. There would be time for that later…

There _would_ be time for that; James had his Q once again.

The touch of fingertips on his chest brought him back from staring at Q’s legs, and he met the younger man’s –and he truly was a man now, not the pup James had found in The Run- eyes, finding his fingers tracing a scar.

For a moment their eyes just lingered on each other, and then Q was grabbing his head and pulling him in for a desperate kiss. Bond’s arms clung to him, wrapping him close and trapping him there, one hand pressing into the warm small of back and the other buried deep in Q’s tangled hair. The omega’s glasses, of all things, were squashed between their chests and their teeth and tongues met hungrily and without finesse as they moaned into each other’s mouths.

The taste, touch, scent became everything to him, the heated feel of Q’s boney hands clutching his hair, shoulders, neck. The soft give of chapped lips and the sharpness of teeth and the little breathy sounds from Q had him growling in past fear for what he’d lost. Desperation that went far beyond ecstasy that Q was back in his arms.

They stopped, their bodies occasionally overbalancing with enthusiasm, only separating when Q’s breaths turned hitched and into sobs as he broke away.

“Sorry, Blanca, sorry, I just, you’re here and-“ James shushed him easily with a growl and curled Q’s head into his neck, ducking to kiss lightly on the pale throat before him and just hold each other. Breathing in the scent of his mate helped calm James down to his bones, releasing the tension and depression he’d been carrying with him for the past two years. He breathed sighed shakily into the skin he’d nearly forgotten the feel of and kissed again, mouthed as Q shook against him, feeling his own throat close in the preset to tears that he just held back.

Wrapped up in each other and grounding themselves they stood for a few minutes until Q rocked into James in a way that wasn’t so much planned as a moment of near-collapse.

“Hmm, Q?” He asked, steadying the smaller man as he wobbled, meeting sheepish eyes and another half-laughed apology.

“Perhaps a sit down?” Mycroft’s voice prompted them primly, indicating the pile of furs.

“Good idea, here, this way.” James, ever so careful and keeping a firm but gentle hold on his taxed and wonderfully solid mate guided the omega towards a particularly soft area. He feared anything less would hurt his too-prominent bones, and sat them both down with care.

Encouraging an all too willing Q to remain wrapped in his arms and leaning on him, James grabbed the nearest free fur and pulled it around them, more so Q, ensuring he was safe and there and covered before anything else could happen.

He couldn’t stop touching the omega for fear he might disappear again. Given the talon-like quality of Q’s hand on his thigh, he thought they were both more affected than they could begin to cope with right now.

“Are you really alright, do you need anything?” James murmured close to Q’s ear, knuckles stroking down from cheek to neck as they waited for all the other wolves to settle, eyes locked onto green.

“Only you.” Q responded with an amused smile, both at the line itself and how painfully true it seemed, his hand squeezing just above James’ knee as if to reassure himself of the alpha’s presence.

“Well, you’ve found that.” James grinned back, voice ever so soft as he tried to believe this was actually happening.

“Yes, and we’d all very much like to know how.” Mycroft piped up, pointedly setting the start of business. Q straightened a little, causing James to grumble in nervous discontent and move to anchor an arm around his omega’s waist. Green eyes scanned around the group with a slight frown of realisation.

“But I want to know what happened here, to you. Why are you all still living here? And what h-happened after I left, the others, Severine and Felix and their pups, M, are they…”

“Safe, for the most part.” Q looked relieved for a split second at James’ words before he caught on to the grim tone that laced them, and his gaze turned a little more worried, focused.

“What happened, what..?” His words trailed off as Q looked from James to around the room. The alpha could tell he was concerned, but after the emotion of today, the casual mention of M and the others they had lost put a vice around his chest and he couldn’t talk for a moment, face grimaced in pain.

“We lost M.” Q’s hand tightened again at Mycroft’s level words, turning to look at James with an aghast expression that spoke volumes of how much he knew M had meant to the man. “She took it upon herself to cause a diversion to save the wolves hiding within the main pack’s den. As I understand it she-“

“Used our scent from a fur to fake a trail. When she ran out…” James’ voice closed off again despite his best attempts to sound calm.

“She ran straight into Silva, who seemed to think she was James attempting an ambush. The injury wasn’t instantly fatal but the blood loss was too much for her. She managed to give some last directions but after that, the medical wolves were stretched as it was, she didn’t make it.”

Tanner’s hollow words from his first hand account left the room in pervasive quiet. Q turned to James again and breathed out shakily before pressing a gentle kiss to his mate’s shoulder. Somehow, more than words, the silent show of solidarity and affection soothed him.

“The alpha pup too, of the other pair. The _savages_ that attacked them evidently deemed a two-year-old a threat and _hurt him_... too much to save.” Sherlock’s spit of a snarled speech lowered the mood yet further, and James could feel Q shudder in horror and hunch in on himself, mouth forming a silent ‘no’. James’ fingers dug into the barely present give of flesh at Q’s waist and hoped that was enough. Knew it wasn’t.

“But I understand that their omega pup owes you his life.” The beta added, head rising a bit with slightly less death in his eyes, Q however, just shook his head.

“Please,” The whisper was more of a beg, Q’s eyes pinched shut in pain. James couldn’t think how to ease it when he himself felt the wounds like a raw knife slice.

“We lost some good wolves, more than a few innocent ones, but they paid the price too.” Lestrade thankfully cut in with. “Out of what didn’t jump to their deaths with you, half their number were killed in the battle, a good quarter defected early on, and the other quarter were examined for how far they’d broken Wolf Law. Certainly killing pups has been outlawed since the Law’s inception. There were more than enough wolves willing to stand up and execute the ones with the worst crimes. Some things can’t be forgiven.”

Q’s breath sounded loud next to him and shaky where he sat stunned in horror, unable to respond. Trembling ribs rose and fell against James’ own chest.

“It took a while, but we sorted out the chaos, well, I say we, James did most of it.” Q’s head perked up a bit at John’s words, turning to look slightly at James, tears still marring his eyes but a light of curiosity in them. The alpha raised a slightly depreciating eyebrow at the thought of his rise to pack leader.

“Apparently, in the face of everything, no one was willing to risk angering a recently loss-shocked alpha whose mate was known to jump over mountains… It seemed to settle most disputes down when they were too afraid to talk to me let alone fight.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve handled the disputes with responsibility and fairness, something that seemed sorely lacking in wolf minds prior to your leadership.” Q started smiling a bit at James’ words, and was full on beaming by the time Tanner was finished, especially when every other wolf seemed to think it time to add something themselves.

“He created an inventive solution to keep the remaining omegas safe, protected and cared for with their families. No more segregation or overwhelming, just a pack of choice. They’re thriving.” Lestrade informed Q.

“Not to mention the no-nonsense approach to managing rebels or squabbling alphas seems to have helped remind everyone that wolves do in fact need to cooperate and not be selfish arses to survive.” Sherlock pointed out with a wry smile. John raised an eyebrow at his fellow beta before adding his own opinion.

“You’re good with making sure there’s enough work around to keep everyone occupied with, feeling useful, that’s helped a lot of wolves.”

“And for some of the younger alphas, it turns out its actually enough to just feel they’re helping out the omegas without even meeting them, setting up goods to be moved to them and the like, or protection.” Tanner.

“A winning combination of education and enforcement, seems to be doing the trick nicely, and even with our committee; those of us here before you along with some of the omega pack, discussing and deciding on ideas and solutions as a group, your James has very much been the figurehead from day one. He was, after all, the one to kill Silva.” James frowned for a moment with a disbelieving shake of the head at Mycroft’s smug addition.

The man himself was the brains behind more than a few of the ideas mentioned, although James _had_ contributed his fair share. Tanner had been instrumental in ensuring a smooth transition and soothing the somewhat panicked betas. John’s medical knowledge combined with his tough personality and capable nature had been a godsend. Sherlock spent most of his time weaving unseen and tying together strings of hints that identified potential unrest or dangerous wolves long before they became problematic, and getting to the bottom of complex issues faster than anyone else could imagine. Ros and Lukas, intelligent wolves in their own right, were something of his two-wolf security team, between them able to deal with pretty much anything that might be thrown at them, currently spending time training young alpha recruits to defend the omega pack. Lestrade’s head for running a pack and laid-back yet authoritative manner was constantly aiding James in translating what every wolf _wanted_ into what they all _needed_ …

Yet somehow, he had become the figurehead. Maybe because he was the first to take that direct stand, full of fury at his fate… but sometimes he didn’t just wonder if Mycroft _knew_ he’d be easily seen as a ‘leader type’ beyond the others and had helped angle everything that way.

Either way, it all seemed to pale in comparison with Q looking on at him in wonder and something akin to reverence that he’d killed Silva. Not a look he’d expected from a mate at he mention of being a murderer… he found himself rather pleased.

“You really, he’s gone?” Q asked, so much hope in his voice and James knocked their foreheads together soundly in response.

“By my own teeth.”

In the background, petulantly, Sherlock muttered “ _I_ killed Moriarty.”

“You _both_ fell off the Reichenbach Falls after playing a nightmarish chase game for two weeks and he died.” John retorted with the air of someone fond yet assured in controlling another’s extravagancies. “It was hardly a swift kill and we could have used you back here.”

“Just because you got Moran in one hit with that knife Q left behind-“

James let their bickering wash over him as Q laughed, quietly but honestly, eyes closing and leaning into the alpha. He’d never heard anything that could soothe his soul so much in just a few seconds.

-00Q00-

Q couldn’t quite believe it, the order James had restored, the amount he’d achieved within a single year and a bit. The alpha before him was a different man to the one Q had known, firmer, less carefree, yet at the same time more grounded seeming, sure in his place, enjoy the regimen or resent the lack of freedom though he probably did… At the same time, Q couldn’t help comparing the lifestyles he and James had led over opposite mountains.

James; leading an almost fierce sounding regime with fairness, himself; leading what he thought of as a fair regime yet with a ferocity that often shocked.

Two sides of the same coin, and for another moment he lamented the time they had lost.

Everything else that had been lost. James had lost the woman who had raised him, carved his existence. Countless wolves had lost friends, family… Other than M, Q could only think of that russety coloured little alpha pup who had kept asking him for belly rubs. The mere thought hurt, gruesome images flashing before his eyes until he could control them, shuddering down the thought of something so young, so innocent, being mauled to death-

Q shut the thought out swiftly as he could, lest he go mad. His emotions were running like blood too close to his skin after his trek and its culmination today. He was afraid one more cut and he’d bleed out unable to stop screaming or suffering hysterics. Really the only thing soothing and calming his racing veins was the steady presence of his mate.

During his contemplation, slowly soaking up James’ body heat next to him as if it was thawing ice from his very soul that he hadn’t noticed freezing over, some wonderful if curious wolves presented them with ample amounts of prepared food. The smell of cooked meat and even greenery made Q’s mouth water and he stared at the bowls like the desperate wolf he was, leaning ever further forward unconsciously towards it with wide eyes. All other thoughts forgotten or driven back with the single-minded focus of the starved.

“Here, Q?” John held out the first plate to him and without thinking the omega lunged and snatched it not pausing to pick up the food as he bent to the plate and tore into its offerings.

It was only the unhealthy silence around him that had Q pause mid-gulp to look around. Most wolves looked shocked, Mycroft downright horrified, but a few were amused. James was smiling, though it was tinged with a pinched layer of pain as he read the starvation in Q’s body.

“There’s plenty.” He offered, picking up a plate for himself and tearing a bloody steak apart with his teeth comfortably, setting a large chunk of it in front of Q. He managed to make some sort of shuddering rapturous noise of simple overwhelming relief before forgoing any vestige of manners to stuff himself utterly full.

Mycroft coughed daintily in the background and Sherlock snorted and Q couldn’t care less because he had _food_ and James kept handing him more and more in between his own mouthfuls, hand warm on Q’s back.

Despite his ravenous enthusiasm Q found he couldn’t eat as much as he should be able to, growing full and almost uncomfortable far too soon in a way that spoke of his gruelling time apart from civilisation.

After a while he had to push himself away from the food with a long sigh, finding himself instantly gathered up back into James’ arms, the alpha’s own food forgotten.

“When was the last time you ate properly?” The man fretted, hands spanning Q’s waist. Self consciously he brought a hand to his own stomach too, even he could admit, he looked a few weeks away from emaciated.

“What month is it?”

“July.” Bond replied, sounding only mildly alarmed, masking the bulk of it well.

“ _July_?” Q replied, swinging to him in shock as he ramped up his internal calculations. He’d been thinking that only a year and a bit had passed still since he’d left James. Ridiculous, but he hadn’t been able to keep track of the length on his journey. Instead of a year and a bit away, it was closer to two. A year and just over seven months.

“F-four months.” Q stammered, slightly stunned at the answer himself. He’d been on that journey for four months. Quite painfully, with a sinking sensation, the world around him started to feel less real. He’d been alone for four months without another soul, how had he managed it? How could he be here?

“Q,” It was the tightening of hands around him, the warmth of breath across his cheek, that steadied Q’s nerves.

“Perhaps you could tell us, now.” Mycroft suggested, not half as snippily as he could, given that he’d proposed the same half an hour ago. Still Q let out a deep, shaky breath at it, glancing briefly to James’ bluer than the glacier eyes and falling in love a little again.

“I don’t know where to start.” Came the helpless response with a small laugh.

“How about the beginning?” James suggested with a calmly raised eyebrow as if suggesting a short walk, and Q laughed a little again before taking a breath. The waiting eyes on him were hungry for the story, eager, and the omega, ever thrown into the forefront of attention, decided to go from the very beginning and let them nudge him forwards when bored.

“The beginning, right. Well, I thought they would follow me if I ran, and more than anything I thought, _hoped_ , that I could do something more to help than be a distraction… so, I jumped. And they _did_ follow, but the other side of Intelligence Pass is a nearly sheer drop and-“

Q went on, seeing the other’s faces fascinated by the descriptions of the other side of the mountain. Flashes of pure pride or amusement as Q bashfully described the trick with the tree that seemed to end up with him being labelled pack leader. Disbelief and a hailstorm of questions at the news of there being _wolves_ over there, what’s more: _omegas_. Of how there had had to be immediate rules put down as Q feared some new version of the Run.

“Alec, he helped so much, I couldn’t have done it without him.” James’ expression closed on one of aching and pride and longing for his friend and he kissed Q’s cheek in some sort of thanks that Q hardly felt deserving of.

Sherlock wanted him to sketch out Lynx and Bears when he described them. Every wolf was a bit unnerved by the ides, and even more so of omegas having to defend themselves against them.

“We do manage you know.” Q had to point out imperiously. “They survived for years before alphas arrived there, and don’t forget that their own alphas were the ones to die first in weakness.” It was a jibe, but Q didn’t particularly care. He’d grown so used to equality that the judgement, well intentioned as it might be, sat ugly next to him. James squeezed his waist in something like pride though.

Similarly, the stories of Lobo and Blanca were treated with the same bemusement and almost worry that Q had felt.

James grew tense when Q described how he had climbed the Ice Peak to find the way home, how high it had been. Q could tell the other wolves were struggling a bit to grasp the sheer volume of things he’d seen or had to conquer. Q found himself lacking the eloquence to explain. 

Certainly by the time he reached the glacier they looked smacked sideways and every few moments a new question was posed to him. The glacier’s hidden cave was nearly incomprehensible, and eventually Q gave up on explaining it, promising Sherlock he’d go through it later when Lestrade wasn’t loosing his patience with the foreign concept. His beta brother’s insatiable thirst for interest and knowledge was both delightful and a hindrance.

At the point where Q haltingly described his three-way fight between the giant fish and white bear over the strange carcass his voice was hoarse. James grumbled anxiously at the concepts and danger his mate had been though. Q leant on him as a much-needed support and reminder of safety as he recalled the terror that had gripped him.

He didn’t mention the meltdown he had had that evening.

He also glossed over the weeks spent in the darkness of the mountains in a way that was telling to the intelligent wolves before him, especially given his freeze outside.

“At the end… I thought I was trapped-“ Q offered, attempted, before his voice snapped itself off with a firm no as if that could keep him from reliving the blinding terror. James’ hold on him didn’t noticeably change to an onlooker as Q collected himself, but he was able to feel the subtle pressure of the hand on his belly increasing until he was snugged back into James closer… The quiet whisper of an assuring sound into his ear was welcome too. “But I could get out.” He barely recovered with a tight, high voice. The sympathetic silence of the wolves letting him continue showed just how well he’d downplayed that event.

The final thing he left out, quite deliberately, was the tomb of ice he’d slept in for the night.

Some things, they were too private for even those who witnessed them to remember. Maybe he’d tell James, or show him, one day.

“The rest, in comparison, was just a fairly straight forward walk down the mountain.”

The silence that greeted him before a slew of exclamations and questions demonstrated anything but. The noise around him was a both welcoming and draining cacophony. Q felt himself sinking back into James, turning away a bit to sniff delicately at his mate’s neck, check he was still there… but instead felt his head dropping there, eyes crossing a bit in a swamp of fatigue encouraged by the safe scent.

“I think, if you’ll excuse us, that’s enough for tonight.” James’ voice a pleasing rumble that brokered no debate as he stood without waiting for a reply. Q scooped within his arms so that there was barely any weight on his wobbly legs. 

“Home?” Q’s quiet hope, request, was barely a murmur.

“Home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos last chapter, I'm very glad the long-awaited reunion was enjoyed!  
> Next chapter James and Q will finally get some time alone to talk.  
> See you then!


	7. Check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long chapter today! I combined two as I wasn't happy with where the first ended, but I'm sure that won't be a problem ;)

[](http://imgur.com/m9WTpjN)

\---

 

To be able to leave the main pack den with his Q back by his side sent the greatest of soaring sensations through James. For the first time in months, a year, he felt completely alert, bright, as if he could feel every caress of young grass blades under his paws and could tiptoe over them weightlessly. He kept close to Q, alternating his eyes on the younger wolf with a reciprocated silly smile or holding a high head as they stalked through the pack. Surrounding him were surprisingly delighted and awed faces, a spark of light and hope in the eyes around him that he hadn’t seen in far too long.

Q kept his head a little ducked bashfully at the welcome home greetings, but wasn’t shy of keeping his posture up when passing dumbfounded alphas.

“It’s so strange, to see this kind of attention again. Back on the other side, I’m really considered quite boring to alphas… Unless I’m growling at them.” James nudged the omega’s shoulder with a flank as he walked, still somewhat amazed by just what Q had accomplished, and at the same time not surprised at all.

“There’s still painfully depleted numbers here, of all genders now since the fighting. Even worse maybe, all the omegas have been cut off and we’ve halted the mating laws until we can work out what on earth to do about that. Having you back, and so publically… It gives them hope I assume.” Q turned to look back at the pack they’d left behind on their assent and then looked to James.

“Hope for what? There’s still only one of me. I didn’t bring anyone else over and they don’t even _know_ about the others-“

“You’re my mate, Q.” James halted gently, with no small amount of pride. The omega blinked at him. “No matter what, they know I won’t keep you hidden away, that I couldn’t. More than anything, they probably just want to see a bit of hope for the future themselves. Any pups we had would be the first alpha-omega pups most, maybe any of them, have seen since the disease struck.” Q breathed out long and slow in pause.

“Pups, of course, you know I’d forgotten I could do that, for a minute.” James halted their steps again as their old den came into view, turned back to Q with a hesitant need to know.

“I meant to ask, if there were…” Q looked away pained for a moment and James feared the worst before their eyes met.

“If there were any, they were never old enough for me to notice loosing them. Not with… everything else.” The honesty was a little brutal to hear, but James had needed to know. The question had been tearing him apart a bit. Q carried on in a murmur after a moment’s pause.

“I wished there had been, sometimes. It would have made it easier to have something of you there with me. But then, I wouldn’t have been able to get them back here… And if I’d _tried_ -” Q’s voice choked off for a moment, no doubt remembering the trials and suffering he had just informed everyone of. Any one of them; the cold of the glacier, snow storms, a bear, losing one in the dark, to hunger… any one of those could, and no doubt would, have taken a pup. James had little doubt that his Q would never have survived the trip if he’d started loosing pups. The thought was too much for any wolf to bear.

“I’m glad there weren’t.” The decisive tone in the alpha’s voice shocked James as much as it did Q. He managed to meet his mate’s eyes fiercely though. “When, if, we have pups, I want to be there to see them. I don’t want to miss any of them.” Something cleared in Q’s eyes cleared at the words, something that James hadn’t realised was lurking there until it dispersed.

“ _When_ we have puppies. I want that too.”

James could have skipped for elation like a pup himself at the sure, coy promise. At the sight of Q’s small curving smile.

They walked on a bit further in silence, James noticing how Q’s fur brushing against his became ever more gradually weight leaning onto him, almost able to feel the tremor shaking fine paws beside him.

“Did you stay here all this time?” Q asked, indicating their den.

“No. Couldn’t bear it. I’ve kept it aired but I couldn’t sleep there alone.” Q paused him again at the words, the understanding in his eyes soothing somewhat, before he looked around.

“Where did you sleep then? I want to see it.”

“Later,” James promised quickly. He had no desire to take Q anywhere near the depressingly scented den he’d been using for the past nearly two years. He’d got Q back, now he wanted him _home_. Not marred with scents of a time he’d rather forget. No, he wanted Q bedded down and warm and safe. “For now, let’s just go home. I’ll get some food brought over for later.” Q acquiesced quickly enough, nearly keening at the sight of their den drawing closer.

At the tunnel entrance his omega paused however, breathing a bit shakily for a minute.

“That could be hard.” Q remarked, no doubt remembering the squeeze to get through the narrowing. James tried to beat down his tangled emotions at imagining Q trapped and panicking, terrified and nearly lost so close to home… knew he’d have nightmares about it, or about coming across the hole months too late and being able to smell Q only to know he was trapped and dead beneath him without knowing he’d got so close.

Shaking the thought away James went to trot in front of Q and dragged his tail briefly across his mate’s muzzle. The younger wolf blinked a bit in surprise.

“Grab my tail, and close your eyes.” Carefully, curiously and a bit worriedly, Q did, his hold gentle yet firm.

The solid connection went straight through the alpha’s spine to his belly in a way he wouldn’t have imagined possible. Taking a breath before pheromones hit the air James turned and led Q into their den.

With his eyes shut, and following the directions of James’ body, Q was unable to know when the tunnel reached its narrowest until it was too late and he was already tumbling through due to unwillingness to let go of his mate.

“Oh,” Q announced, surprised with the ease of the transition before looking around and breathing out with a shaky gasp, shifting into his skin.

James followed suit, went to capture Q gently around the waist and spent a long minute inhaling the scent at the juncture of jaw to neck as he led them both towards the pile of furs.

Falling back onto it as Q’s legs gave out in something like relief the alpha managed to twist them to take the smaller wolf’s weight. In a heap, for the longest time they just stayed that way, holding each other. James stroked his fingers through Q’s matted hair and down the pale, bruised back. The smaller man shuddered slightly in his hold, long weather-hardened fingers slowly tracing small portions of James’ chest, lips trailing gentle kisses there. For a while, they simply indulged in that, James basking in the feel of Q in his arms and scent in the air. It lasted for peaceful minutes until his instincts began to flare up at the feel of so much broken skin and too many visible bones beneath his fingertips.

“Damn Q, no, shush, let me check.” He stilled Q’s shifting movements at the serious tone in James’ voice, settling the other wolf down gently further down his chest and sitting up slightly. Q watched quietly where he could as the alpha ran careful hands along arms and over spine and back. Mapping, appraising, cataloguing every dent, bruise, tear and injury.

“How on earth did you do it?” James murmured as he carefully rolled the other man over. Of course he himself had achieved things other wolves thought he couldn’t, but the sheer scale of Q’s gruelling struggles to get home staggered him. The level of damage wasn’t close to Q’s Run remarkably, but the neglect and stress forced onto his body was awful. Worse. Q had been over exerted during The Run, but it had been acute. This chronic wasting that left his mate with nothing but lean muscles clinging to his frame and more weathered skin than he’d ever seen was something else.

“How are you still awake?” James remedied, a half-pained laugh gracing his tone. Q remained silent for a moment before looking at him.

“Because I needed to… and now because I don’t want to blink and miss you.” Leaning down hurriedly with a barely hidden whine James covered Q’s face in slow, lingering kisses. Tracing over forehead and pressing his mouth to both eyelids and the side of Q’s nose, mouth, he eventually brought their eyes to meet again.

“We’re together now, that won’t change with sleep. You’ll never sleep alone again.” For some reason the words sent Q into a shiver as he melted into James, breathing out a shaky sigh again.

“Say it again.”

“As long as I’m here, you’ll never sleep alone.”

“Fuck but I missed you,” Q laughed out in something caught between joy and tears, hands drawing James closer. The alpha slipped around him easily, with pleasure, taking a moment to note the new way they slotted together with Q’s height and one hand gracing low on the omega’s back before a thought struck him. He pulled back slightly.

“What did you do for your heats out there?” Q froze a moment, eyes open wide, and James inwardly cursed himself. Q hadn’t mentioned anything about them during the meeting, no doubt because they hurt. It was personal, and probably not something the younger wolf wanted to dwell on. “Never mind, you didn’t mention it in front of the others and I wondered if, don’t worry, you don’t have to tell.”

“I haven’t had one since I left.” Q murmured, eyes moving to catch James’ in shock. “Fuck, that’s not normal, is it? I should have had one… somewhere in the glacier…” Seeing some growing worry James hastily brought him back close and tried to calm him.

“You were stretched too far Q, had no food, you’ve been travelling for months, it’s only that your body couldn’t take it. Over exertion, something like that.” He was sure he’d heard John saying something similar during the year when talking about omegas.

“Then I should have one soon.” Q went on to say, a bit nervously, fiddling a little. “Unless, _ha_ ,” the broken, anxious laughter made James pull him closer, “unless I’ve finally done it, what no one else could, managed to break my own nature.” Quickly James’ hands found Q’s face, framed his cheeks and forced their eyes to meet.

“You haven’t broken _anything_. You’re tired, stressed and underfed. Whatever else, we’ll deal with it together in the morning, alright?” Q relaxed a bit as James kissed him for a long moment, wiping away stressed and exhausted beginnings of tears from dark lashes. “Just let me take care of you for now.” Q breathed out a bit with his eyes closed, ran a hand through his hair and winced at the feel of it before laughing a bit, calmer now.

“Alright, I can do that. Probably a good idea, really.” James offered a confident smile.

“Best I’ve heard all year, now,” He curled Q close again, tucked the omega under his chin and rolled a fur over them as they slowly entwined. “all you have to do is sleep, alright.” He murmured the last words into Q’s hair, imagined the thousand ways he could think of to make the omega feel better, wind down finally from the journey that had forced him to be alert for months to survive, and felt a long breath of warm air against his collarbone as Q relaxed slowly against him to the languid feeling of fingers massaging his head.

Despite Q’s worry and his mate’s condition, for the first time in months, James felt in control and complete. And safe in a way he hadn’t realised his unsettled nature had meant.

 

-00Q00-

Q slept for longer than James had thought possible for a wolf. At first he’d tossed and turned and startled awake blearily and the alpha had had to hush him and remind him where he was. The moments when James’ voice truly registered and Q’s eyes lit like the moon and his body relaxed into the curl of his mate’s arms were fast becoming James’ favourite sight.

“Shh, easy Q, I’m here, you’re safe now.” He’d murmur when Q gasped and flinched outstretched arms inwards in a blind moment of confusion, and it would take seconds but the omega would fall back asleep like the worries had been lifted off his back.

James himself snatched sleep where he could. He felt he’d had more than enough sleep in comparison to watching his long lost mate and guarding his fears. If closeness and a calm word was all Q needed to feel safe for the first time in months; James would give it and gladly lose sleep.

He’d only taken brief breaks to howl down for some food and supplies, and for John to bring his medical skills to check the alpha hadn’t missed anything when examining Q. In response he’d received not only the food, but ample gifts from his pack of bedding, warm clothes and a basket full of summer mountain flowers that smelt sweet in the den. Lukas and Ros had brought over a woven gift basket of pampering soaps and herbs similar to the one they’d been given as a mating gift. The present was gathered for them by the omega pack when they heard of Q’s return. James wondered how soon Q would want to meet them, not to mention vice versa. The wolves up there had been very curious about the omega who had changed fate for them so much. And Felix and Severine, they had been in the thick of it, and after loosing one of their children, the fact that Q had been lost as well was another blow to the pair of them. Severine had taken it harder than James thought possible.

Everything had been brought up and left a respectable distance from the den, along with plenty of well wishings, and pointed suggestions from Mycroft to have a feast and keep Q in the pack’s eye, unless, of course, he was in heat. John had written a brief note to say he’d be up in the afternoon.

It had taken half the morning whilst Q slept soundly to move and store everything in their den, and by that time James thought he’d probably earned a meal. Q started to wake with the scent of cooking meat and roots and some of the rarer goods from the south like rice.

James moved back over to him whilst the food cooked, keen to be beside him whilst he woke. With some sluggish shifting and slightly confused mumbles, along with a rumbling stomach, Q eventually blinked awake to James running knuckles over his side. There was a sleepy yawn against his chest and appreciative sniff that James chuckled at lightly, trying not to think about how Q seemed a little more exhausted and broken for actually being able to stop and rest his stressed body.

“Up to eating something?”

“Good Blanca yes.” Q agreed heartily, sitting up with a bit of help and a bit of a wince. “Mm, stiff.” The omega complained briefly, rolling his shoulders. James rubbed them carefully for a moment and pressed a kiss there before drawing one of the fur-lined robes around Q’s shoulders and bundling him up.

“You’ve been forcing yourself to keep going, it’s just the inevitable crash, don’t worry. That’s what I’m here for.” Q settled a bit and turned to James with a melting smile.

“You are here.” The love in his mate’s voice dissolved the pair of them into a nuzzling session until the desperation of Q’s stomach became unavoidable.

Plying his mate with food brought James’ alpha instincts more satisfaction than he had believed possible. Q ate at the same ravenous speed he had the day before and was fascinated by all the various flavours. They sat with Q on his lap, James rather concerned with letting Q come into contact with anything cold given that he kept yawning and that the alpha’s arms wrapped far too easily around him.

When John arrived carrying his medical pack between his teeth, they’d just about finished eating and were examining the gifts they’d received. The beta huffed out and shook his head as he shifted into skin, shimmying into a shirt James handed him.

“I still can’t believe it.” John nodded at Q. “You’re lucky it’s just me as well, Mycroft was nearly here too when he heard you might need a doctor. The packs’ quite worried, though half of them just think you’ve gone into heat.”

“That’s part of the problem really.” Q admitted, a touch of control in his voice that disguised embarrassment. “I should have had one on the way here but I didn’t, and another one is due in a few weeks so…”

“Well I’m not surprised you didn’t have one out there, have you seen yourself recently?” The joke wasn’t unkind, but held an undertone of worry as the beta came closer. James retracted himself slightly but didn’t draw completely away. “It will probably take some time to get your body back into the swing of things, though I am keen that you do make that heat, it’s not good to get too far out of rhythm. Here, let’s take a look at you.”

John was gentle and professional with his touch in a way James appreciated, though it was still harder than he’d imagined to see another’s hands on his recently re-found mate. Especially given that they hadn’t re-claimed their bond intimately. If a non-family alpha was attempting to look at Q’s weight and bruises as John was, Bond would bite first and worry about the after effects later.

“Right, simple exhaustion mostly. Overexertion. I expect malnutrition to go along with the fact you’re underweight. And I don’t want you doing anything more strenuous than a gentle stroll until you’ve gained some weight back and those bruises have faded. All in all, not too bad for everything you’ve done.” John wrapped up, patting Q on the re-clothed shoulder. “Your lack of a heat most likely was due to lack of nutrition, and probably saved your life. Now,” The other wolves watched the medic as he rifled through his pack. “I want you to eat some of these herbs with your meals for a week, they’re good for your health, and put this balm on cuts and bruises once a day. Lots of rest, lots of small meals throughout the day and I recommend visiting the hot baths in the main den. Keep relaxed, clean and looked after and we’ll get you back on track in no time.” Q remained blinking for a moment before reacting.

“Hot baths?” He asked turning to James.

“We have had some developments since you’ve been here last.” James teased, finding it easier than truly considering their time spent apart. “We were excavating the main den a bit further and found some hot springs deeper in the mountain, a heated natural lake.” The confused and stunned expression on Q’s face left James grinning with amusement.

“I can’t imagine that.”

“I’ll show you today, you could do with a wash.” He plucked playfully at Q’s hair as the younger wolf ducked away at the tease.

“Good plan. If you don’t come down anyway Mycroft is probably going to come up here to find you. And it would calm down the pack members who are worrying about you if you made another appearance, maybe for a meal, there’s a celebratory one in the offing.”

“Thank you John.” James nodded as the beta began re-packing his things, Q went forwards for a brief friendly head-bump as he shifted into his fur and received a chuckle and scratch behind the ears in return.

“Good to have you back Q, Bye for now you two, see you down there later.”

-00Q00-

James insisted on feeding Q another meal before they headed down towards the pack. The omega hardly resented this action, instead once again devouring everything James put in front of him.

“Here, try this too.” Q glanced at the morsel of dried fruit brought up from the lowlands being held to him from James’ fingers. After a blink, feeling a fluttering of anticipation in his chest that he hadn’t for over a year, Q leant forwards enough to take the piece without the use of his hands.

Delicately his lips mouthed the tips of James’ fingers, savouring both the taste of the fruit and his mate’s blown-black eyes and sudden inhale as his tongue licked up the food and taste left behind.

He was feeling steadier today, calmer, and wholly fixed on James as if every part of his body was honed towards the man. James paused for a bare few seconds, eyes raking over Q’s face with a focus that the omega found exhilarating. One hand slid up his back leaving shivers in its wake at the press of heat through fur, and the other brought up a tart, ripe berry to his lips, encouraging to press it inside. Q, still suffering a gnawing low-level hunger, was only too glad to accept. His eyes locked onto James’ as he ate the offered fruits.

Q could remember, just about, eating more intimately than this. During his first heat James had had to feed him directly from his mouth. But he was aware this time, a slight flush of heat building on his skin each time James hand fed him a morsel like he was something precious, maybe something wild to be tamed. That was more or less how Q felt anyway, surrounded by the sudden lap of luxury and being taken care of in a way he hadn’t known he craved. The silence, the way his mate’s fingers started with wiping a drip of juice off his lips and back into his mouth for Q to suck at slowly, lent the atmosphere a tension that thrummed between them.

Gradually the rough pads of James’ fingers began to play and toy with Q’s lips as he ate, his heavy gaze still capturing the omega’s eyes. The alpha’s free hand came to support Q’s head, curling firmly around the back of Q’s neck as he pressed another berry into juice-stained lips. At the dual movement Q found himself shivering, shuddering and emitting a small whimpered moan as his legs trembled and loosened. His body was going limp and heavy as if drugged and all his mind could focus on was the blue of James’ Glacier eyes and the catching-rub of fingertips over his wet lips, the heat of the hand holding his head up and the strength of the muscles in James’ thighs beneath where he sat.

The alpha breathed out something too low for Q to hear under his now shakily panting breath and finally closed the distance until their lips met and pressed, locked.

With an urgent whine Q’s hands jacked up to curl and clutch at James’ hair and shoulders. The alpha’s hands shifting and swapping till the one at his neck smoothed firmly down to support the small of his back. The hand at his mouth stroked around his cheek into hair as with a smooth movement James bore them both down to the furs beneath.

Tingling lighting seemed to be shooting through Q’s body as he whined and grabbed at James, trembling so hard beneath him that the alpha growled deep and flattened him. The wet sound of their kisses and Q’s small gasps were broken when something in Q quivered and broke into heat around his belly and groin. Deep inside him Q could feel a sluggish heaviness and wet that was trying to burn out of him and he mewled out a half-frantic little desperation as almost dry heat flushed his body. His hands fell to clutch at James’ hips and drag him closer.

James hushed a small hiss that could either have been reassurance or the sound of an alpha too effected for words. One large hand slid down Q and pushed aside furs to hold onto Q’s heated belly as the omega gasped against his mate’s lips.

There was another wrenched curse as Q’s legs trembled either side of James’ and with an almost hurt mewl at the shot of heat and nearly-burning tingle Q felt himself wet and open. Hole pulsing and clenching and Q’s head was swimming and he could hardly breath or think for the scent of James’ arousal thick in the air and the sight of his alpha’s intense focus on him and parted to pant lips.

“Q, Q,” James murmured, voice catching as if in request and a hot kiss was placed to his lips, the wet skin sliding together for a moment before James trailed down to mouth at his jaw, just at the pulse under his bone. Q’s eyes slid shut with his burning and pulsing, alpha-drugged body, fingers remaining tight on James even as the rest of him went almost utterly limp and gasping.

The trail of rough fingers over his skin, a second hand massaging around the glands on his neck that if pressed would keep him supine as a carried pup and the velvet, damp blunt pressure of James’ erection that was growing atop his trembling thigh became everything of Q for a moment. Until James’ mouthing at his neck turned to the light scratch and then press of teeth and his mate’s hand scrambled hurriedly for his rump as if unchained.

The thicker, sluggish seeming slick leaking over Q’s buttocks was slipped through by firm fingers and he bit off a high, half-pained whine as two pushed determinedly past his hopelessly willing ring of muscle and forced in past the deeper lock of resistance.

The burn of penetration and stretch hurt after so long without, after he wasn’t prepared and with his body trying to rush into getting his alpha inside him again. But the feel and knowledge that it was James who had his fingers hurriedly drawing out of Q’s entrance and was biting down on his neck enough to bruise left him feeling so ravenously hungry for more, for being filled and full and _together_ with James again that the pain was almost welcome.

Through his mewls and James’ grunts and their panting breath Q heard his mate shifting, gripping his smouldering hips bruisingly tight and then, with his thighs falling apart and James nestled in their cradle the thick, blunt heat of his alpha’s cock caught at his rim and _pushed_.

For a moment with a whining cry from Q James penetrated and stretched him so full with his engorged cock that the omega chocked and curled all around his mate where his hips weren’t being pushed into the bedding. The moment lasted for just that though before the heavy girth pushing inside him hit tensed, unprepared muscle and it seemed to _rip_ and Q was dry and overheated and pain _stabbed_ through him from that most sensitive and delicate of hidden places and his mewls turned to fully pained cries and a panicked whimpered-wail in the fight to get away.

James withdrew instantly but with no shortage of dry, dragged pain and grabbed to curl Q close as he panicked, a shaking hand bringing his nose and mouth hurriedly to the comfort of the alpha’s neck.

“Q, shh, shh, its okay. Alright! Alright,” James’ hurried assurance at the end was loud as he tried pressing a soothing hand to Q’s backside and was met with a short shout of pain and flinch. “Alright,” He repeated soothingly for all his voice was still slightly lust-struck and kept both arms tight around Q strictly above the waist. Q began to calm, body cooling at a ridiculous rate until he was left shocky with cold that seemed to emanate from within and be doubled by the sweat on him cooling.

He felt ragged and exhausted and embarrassed, managing to flush, still, as he panted into James’ neck with little frustrated and tearful cries.

“Sorry, sorry I don’t-“

“Shh, Q. You’re alright, you’re fine.”

“I don’t know what-“ He was broken off by his own scared and high-pitched whine as his body again attacked through with heat burning at him and leaving him light headed and reeling, his entrance and channel pulsating and twinging in pain as slick again tried to trickle in a pathetic dribble out of him.

“Damnit.” James swore, clutching Q close and he could hear the real fear in his mate’s voice, masked barely by blind frustration. “It’s okay, it will pass, you’re just, _Blanca_ I don’t know what, trying to force a heat or-“

“But it was fine, I was f-“ A low, long half cry half scream of pain toppled his voice and reasoning as Q’s body again burned hot with cramping agony so strong that for a moment he blacked out, coming to in a limp, panting heap of cold-sweat that was being held up solely by James’ shaking arms.

“Q, Q! Gorgeous, come on, can you hear me? Q?” He tried to respond with a garbled, open-mouthed moan from where he seemed to be swimming in the room, and James’ hand traced a previously unnoticed tear track form under his eye. “Good, good Q, can you open your eyes for me?” He tried, he did, but James cursed at the fluttering motion and laid him down carefully.

The furs felt too solid beneath him and his body scratched back into a fire that left him shuddering and nauseous, focusing on James’s body heat returning to lie beside him and a hand stroking the sweat and hair from his temple.

“Dammit I shouldn’t have tried, Q, I’m sorry…” With a breath the shaky, terrified voice collected itself back into the calm that settled his thumping heart and head slightly. “Just stay with me, alright, I’ve howled back for John, not long now, just breathe steady for me.”

And Q did, and it helped, and having James there helped, and something that now seemed like overworked, overwhelming terror began to settle as James stroked his hairline and lay beside him. A few more bursts of heat ratcheted through him but lesser now, the weak pulse of slick drying up in a way that made Q worry for a while if that was the last attempt at heat his body would ever manage. That he’d never entwine with all his senses stripped bare with James like that again. That they could never be intimate, never share the frenzy of heat, he’d never carry James’ pups…

“Q, gorgeous, can you talk?” James spoke again, voice holding its composure as he thumbed delicately over the tear-stained corner of Q’s eye after a flare of the burning heat died down, weaker now.

“’s less, ‘s less now.” He slurred, mind on the edge of exhaustion and body going numb save the occasional stab of pain from where he and James had foolishly tried to join. He felt _weak_ , feeble, couldn’t even move his awkwardly tucked, shaking arms from his chest.

“Good, that’s good. You feel cooler.” In between his dwindling spikes of heat Q felt freezing, just quiet and shaking and crying silent tears that James was kissing away.

“I’m here, I’m here what happ-Blanca.” John pushed his way in, Q could see through the gaps of his slitted eyelids that the man was taught, focused. “Tell the others to wait outside.”

“Is he…”

“ _Now_ Sherlock.” Q could just make out the foggy blur of his brother’s curled head ducking out of the narrowing before James’ hand slipped steadyingly over his neck and collarbone, other hand petting his tangled hair into ever more determined mats.

“Right, I want you to focus on me, Q, can you tell me where you are?” John began in a businesslike and firmly demanding manner.

The question took a while to process even though Q had heard and understood all the words. Even then his tongue seemed stuck.

“Q?” James prompted gently, hands shifting as if to hold Q together in a cradle.

“’m here.” Q managed to answer rather thickly after a while, his head felt heavy and shut. “Den, home, James.” He added, eyes rolling to his mate at the mention of his name and seeing James lean to put their heads together just before his eyes blurred close again.

“Can you tell me what you’re feeling? Does anything hurt?” John clarified, his fingers busy fiddling with the numb ones on Q’s own hand, pressing down with a metal rod on them till Q was sure it should hurt but felt nothing. His skin didn’t even darken red.

He was sure, later, that the answer he had to give would be embarrassing.

“In-inside, wh’re we,” his voice trailed off again with his swimming focus.

“He’s bleeding, but we didn’t, not that hard. Is that normal?”

“I think you’ve both under appreciated just how far his body’s been stressed. He hasn’t had a _heat_. He hasn’t had enough _food_. His body can’t even produce slick properly right now but its _trying_ and being in any way intimate with you his long lost mate is going to throw him into trying to force a heat that his body can’t cope with just to fulfil that side of the bond and it’s far too much for him to take and you’re lucky he’s still conscious! I told you to give him a bath not try and have _sex_ with hi-!”

James’ roar of rage shuddered through Q and for the next few minutes he lay panicked and paralysed by weakness on the floor as snarls of fighting wrought the air over his head and the smell of too many wolves filled the room.

“I’m trying to _help_ you!” John shouted, panting as the hubbub died down, James’ ragged breath more of a snarl.

“Then don’t get _clever_!” He spat. “You think if I’d known I would have risked him like that? You have no idea what it’s like having him back here and in my arms and-“

James’ voice cracked. Actually broke. And with every faculty Q could possess right now he knew it was the first time he was hearing his mate cry, and that he never wanted to hear it again.

Some desperate to soothe whine slipped half choked out of Q’s throat and he curled infinitesimally towards the scent of James. There was a shaky, sob of a huff and Q was being gently gathered up in his mate’s arms and held in a shaking, carefully tight grip.

The hot splash of James’ tears hit his throat and Q stroked the backs of his numb fingers where he could on James’ stomach, mouth murmuring a lilting rumble of something like a purr to soothe his barely together mate.

“Sorry. Of course I know that. None of us can imagine but James, you’ve got to be careful, like this, he can’t regulate his body. Not for warmth, or for cold, he can’t control the strength of desire because all you two want is to re-establish your bond.”

James’ growl against Q’s throat suggested that he understood, didn’t like, and didn’t find the advice helpful.

“There _are_ ways to make this easier,” Mycroft’s voice interrupted, only slightly tighter than calm tone betraying his tension. Q had just enough presence of mind to feel his embarrassment heighten, happy that he was hidden in James’ arms and chest. “Our other surviving mated pairs have had to improvise in the past as well. Simple intimacies that do not involve intercourse _will_ help your bond to re-stabilise without pushing Q into an early heat.” Mycroft’s words steadied as he talked, becoming more convinced, more convince _ing_.

“And for now?” James managed to growl in an utter. Q whispered a gentle noise at it in comfort and felt James’ breath catch before the lightest of kisses was pressed to his neck.

“Rest. Food, water. I suggest that somebody else stays with you for now at all times. You’re both less likely to try and subconsciously induce a heat if there’s company present.” James was silent for a moment, his tears gone but hands still trembling just barely where they pressed against Q’s skin. From where he draped lax and unresponsive in his mate’s arms, Q reflected with a stabbing desire to laugh that this wasn’t quite the smoothly glorious homecoming he’d expected.

Certainly, he’d never imagined _this_. But with James around him so firmly and careful in his hold, warm breath ghosting across Q’s neck in a way that felt like being carried home on a gentle tide rather than a destroying trek, he found happiness and contentment seeping slowly into his deadened limbs. Every shift of James’ breathing chest and beating heart against him was a soothing lullaby of calm that the omega was swiftly falling asleep to.

“Aright. Whatever it takes. Whatever he needs.” James agreed finally, pressing a kiss into Q’s hair as the younger wolf succumbed to his exhaustion peacefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Troubles aren't quite over for our duo, but they're together and healing, and on their way :)  
> Thank you for the comments and kudos last chapter, I shall see all you beauties next week!


	8. Care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day late! Apologies, but BAFTAs happened!

[](http://imgur.com/Exchvwl)

 

\---

 

Q shivered beside him throughout the night in a fitful sleep, and was sluggish in the morning, barely responding to movement and voices around him with half open eyes. He kept dozing on and off, looking pale, and James was keeping himself calm as best he could given that there were other wolves in the den to watch him.

Sherlock stayed curled as a wolf next to Q for some time, looking slightly put upon but remaining carefully still as Q turned slowly to lean on him, nose burying into familiar scented fur. Mycroft, similarly, had been ensconced in a sleepily enforced cuddle. Quite startling James when he appeared only too accustomed to this and pulled his youngest brother closer, casually petting filthy hair.

John helped get food and water into Q. Something James felt more than capable of managing alone. But given the way he’d attacked John last night he thought it best to not anger the one medic he trusted any further. John still had bruises around his biceps from James grabbing and throwing him. James himself had scratches and marks from Sherlock, Lestrade and Tanner holding him back, but they merely faded into the monotony of aches in his body.

For one beautiful day, Q had been alive and vibrant beside him, and although John assured the alpha his mate would be fine he felt impotent and useless. A feeling only alleviated by Q.

As he became more aware, the omega, still dopey with shock and fatigue, began looking around with a worried and lost expression whenever James wandered too far. The frown between his brows disappeared with James’ touch and Q always curled towards him. Powerless, and unwilling to do anything else but stay as close to his mate as possible James spent most of the day quieting Q’s shivers by keeping him close, head resting in the crook of neck or above his heart, or in his lap.

Q was filthy by now in a way that James could only notice the extent of with so much time to examine him. His hair was the most strikingly dirty, but with all the sweat and lack of bathing there was a layer of grime encasing Q’s skin that James couldn’t think of as healthy. The creases and folds of joints were darkened with imbedded dirt. It was getting to the point that Q was fairly pungent, but all the alpha could really smell was the traces of blood and hurt.

He’d never wanted to hurt Q like that; inside like others had tried to. Accidental or not, small wound or not, it left James sickened at himself. Nauseated by just how easy it had been to lose control.

He kept thinking of Felix, he kept thinking of Erik, both of whom had hurt their mates terribly, much worse than James ever had, under the influence of heat and their Runs. He’d been sympathetic with them before, but now he could begin to understand the pain lacing their eyes. He’d felt he’d failed Q by being unable to keep him safe from outside threat…

Never for a minute had James entertained the thought of _being_ the one to hurt Q, however minimally. It was what he had based their whole relationship on from the start; the understanding that he _wasn’t_ going to hurt Q. and now, here, Q was curled warmly against his side, shivers finally subsided, and whining whenever James moved away.

His skin itched uncomfortably with the need to do something, to do more. His hands prickled like he needed to wash them.

Instead of that, because he couldn’t, he resolved to get Q cleaned as soon as possible. He regretted having ever put it off for the sake of a quick moment of closeness.

The opportunity finally came when Q roused fully in the afternoon, a bit wan and shaking a little when he moved, but alert and awake and looking shamefully embarrassed in a way James longed to wash away with the dirt. Instead he helped Q sit up, and before John could speak, leant close enough to keep the tone low, quiet, calm.

“How about that bath?” Q cracked a sheepish grin that he matched, and a weak laugh, running his hand through hair as much as he could. Q turned to press a kiss to his shoulder before meeting his eyes.

“Best plan I’ve ever heard.” Because that was what Q needed, some normalcy, respect that he’d say if he was too hurt or in pain, not enquiries about his health. No matter how important. James got the impression that they both felt more than foolish enough for what happened to be reminded of it.

“Come on then.” James shifted into his fur, Q following suit a little gratefully and wobbling to his slender legs and paws. At least as a wolf, Q could walk under his own volition. Having proven himself as a leader and astonishing wolf to the pack though he may, James knew Q had never been a fan of showing conceived weaknesses in public. John looked set to argue the pair of them out of moving, to check that Q was fit enough to leave the den, but held himself back at the sight of James tenderly nosing at the thick, soft fur on Q’s face, the omega’s eyes closed in bliss as he listed towards his mate.

James didn’t think he’d ever been more thankful of John’s tact then in that moment.

“Come on then, there’s some muscle relaxing herbs I want you two to use. James, you could do with them too considering your leg.”

“What happened to your leg?” Q interrupted with, blinking in tired worry, looking down to snuffle with as much haste as his lethargic body would allow at his mate’s sound-seeming legs.

“That old bite wound. Might have strained it a bit.”

“He tried to jump off the mountain after you a couple of months ago.” John supplied uncharitably, packing up his bag.

“Hardly his crowning moment of glory.” Sherlock agreed in the back haughtily.

“Now now children.” Mycroft overrode smoothly, clearly addressing all four other wolves in the den. “Do let’s try and reach civilisation in one piece.”

Q snorted a bit at Mycroft’s den disdain. Certainly the alpha had made it known that whilst _some_ wolves might be content to sleep on bundles at floor level, he was above that. And was, as soon as he’d commissioned a bed frame to be built for him.

Ironically, it had started quite the fad, even if James could never quite trust the wooden contraptions.

-00Q00-

 

Walking down the mountain and through the pack with some show of strength had been enough effort that Q nearly fell asleep on his paws long before their destination. Wolves had wanted to greet him, check he was okay. Many in their skin ran hands near Q’s fur and remarked that he should be washed already. James, bless him, defended with a sly, enticing smile that they hadn’t had time; inferring activities that the others laughed or blushed at.

Still, keeping his head and tail high and a trotting rather than trudging gait was more burden than he’d imagined. It was, however, a comfort to him and James both that part of Q’s complete crash evidently stemmed from having the safety to finally allow it, because with the pressure on once again Q managed his walk through the pack just well enough.

Yet as they reached the den entrance and Q once again closed his eyes and mouthed James’ tail to be pulled through his fear, he managed only ten paces before his back legs crumpled under him and he slumped to the ground. With James’ tail in his mouth the alpha was brought to a halt too, but even with James turning and nosing for him Q couldn’t let go.

Exhaustion crackled at his muscles leaving them twinging in pain. Ridiculous, really, he’d done more than this on less. But now his body felt weighted and his head oddly light and dizzy. A little nauseous.

“Easy, no more moving, give him a minute.” John’s calm voice eased over the slightly desperate-growing nosing from James. Q tried and failed to let go of his mate’s tail. Horrified on some instinctual level of the man pulling away. Or of waking up trapped underground in a fever-

“I know, I know.” James voice calmed, collected, and the tail disappeared from Q’s mouth as his mate shifted into skin. With a low whine the omega automatically shifted to mirror him, turning a little towards the alpha’s warmth. A steady, once again in control hand found his cheek and the heat of the skin made him realise he was cold and shivering.

“Its alright, Q, you’re going to be fine.” At Q’s unsure question of a noise James hushed him gently. “I’ve got you. Just like your first heat remember, you’ve just been going for a bit longer than that.”

The reminder of care eased into Q’s bones as pleasantly as James’ body heat. Calming Q’s own nerves somewhat. At least he had moments of bodily control this time around; wasn’t severely hurt.

Soothed, Q must have dosed for a bit because he came around bouncing slightly on James’ back. And then again being lowered into shallow, hot water. The glimpse of blue eyes swimming above him as a strong hand supported under his neck, allowing a gentle tip back until up to his ears were under heated lapping of the pool.

It was a half blur of memory and reality. James, then, passing a cool cloth over his broken and tensed, heated skin in No Man’s Land… Now, James’ arm around his shoulders and thighs under his legs as he passed a warm cloth over thin, dry, chilled skin. A comb brushing through his hair then. A sharp snick of paired knives snapping away the snarled ends of his hair now. Massaging exhausted muscles. Careful, circular rubbing everywhere and watching dirty water drift away in the slow current.

The stinging little pains of having his hair washed and combed were soothed as James rinsed a cool liquid through his locks. Slowly Q rolled his head over to rest in the crook of James’ neck, trying to embody the gratitude and protection, love he felt. A hand stilled in its work for a moment and slid up to cup his cheek, thumb rubbing slowly under his eye and Q sighed in pleasure.

Every inch of him felt cherished, soothed, as if his skin was singing in affection by the time James was finished.

“All done. Are you with me?” Too relaxed to speak Q nodded, fingers curling against James’ chest where they rested.

“I think you need to get dry before I have a wrinkle for a mate.” Q huffed a soft breath of laughter and flattened his palm to James’ chest in thanks. He appreciated the washing, but the humour helped in a different way entirely.

It was hard not to realise just how much time he’d spent out of commission and under his alpha’s care.

“I’d hoped,” Q murmured; smile slipping a bit as he voiced the plaguing thought into the safety of James’ stilled skin. “That this time, I might finally be able to stand on my own feet by you.”

Silence stretched on for long enough of a moment that Q wished he hadn’t voiced the thought. Began to feel hot with embarrassment rather than water and forcing his eyes open to the blurry wall opposite him.

“Sorry I-“

“Do you hate me for not jumping over the mountain to follow you? Or for not finding the path to get to you myself?” The matter of fact tone tried so hard to disguise the underground kernel of self-depreciation and trepidation that Q looked straight into James’ slightly shadowed eyes.

“No, it would have been impossible for you to find the tunnel entrance let alone know it for what it was, or follow it all the way to me. It took me a _month_ to even find the start and at least I knew the way…” he had to pause to catch breath again, before carrying on in his mildly confused tone. “Of course I’d hoped to see you, dreams and fantasies and snow-delusions, but in reality I knew different.” Something cleared slightly in James’ eyes, if not all the way, leaving Q frowning.

“Then you understand how I feel too. Of course I would have preferred for you to come home without a scratch on you, without ever feeling starved, or trapped,” The alpha paused briefly as Q tensed uncomfortably at even the mention of it. “But on a journey like yours, like anything that you’ve done around me, I know it would have been impossible. In fact that you made it as well as you did is shocking… Did you want to see me less because I failed to be the one to find _you_?”

“Of course not.” Q breathed, beginning to understand the depth of what James was pointing out.

“Then never,” A brief pause, James’ blue eyes focussing sharper on Q’s wide greens. “Ever, even for a moment, believe that I love you any less for helping you with what you’ve been through. I know it’s hard to see it that way, in the same way I find it hard to accept that you don’t feel I let you down, but it’s true… And aside from anything else, I’ve always relished being able to do things for you… do _this_ for you,” James indicated their bath and their bodies close together. “I know it isn’t something you would allow from anyone else, and it’s my pleasure.” Q scoffed a little in a laugh, but it was more bashfully embarrassed than anything, a blush that had nothing to do with the water heat spreading over his cheeks.

“You could charm your way out of a deal with Lobo.” Q teased, proud when his voice was only slightly flustered. James broke into a full grin.

“Sometimes I don’t wonder if _you’re_ a little Lobo, conquering mountains and fighting battles and bears and refusing to follow other’s leads. So let me unleash the inner alpha for once would you, and care for my own mate.” Q couldn’t help it, James sounded so dually amused and mock-offended that he broke into laughs, curling against his mate and drawing himself up to kiss high on James’ neck lingeringly. Feeling buoyant in a way that he hadn’t realised his internal frets were suffocating, Q grinned open and relaxed and honest.

“In that case, I’m all yours, alpha.” James growled, smirking, but dutifully did no more than pick Q up with deft care and take him over to a nest area of clean, dry bedding. Doctor’s orders, after all.

-00Q00-

Even with John’s restraint on having sex, James found, as ever, that simply being in contact with Q was contenting. Even more so now, when he’d believed he’d never have this again; Q, calm and supplicant beneath him on a nest by the heated pools. Small sighs and murmurs of pleasure breathed through the air around them as James’ hands smoothed delicate balms into Q’s skin to thicken it, soothe it back from dry and under nourished. The balms’ heat seeped through into James’ hands and Q’s muscles and left him tingled as Q melted beneath him.

He couldn’t help taking his time, luxuriating in Q the only way he could. James massaged his omega from head to toe, carefully ensuring he had cleaned under each nail and crease. Over bruises and healing cuts he rubbed a poultice and through Q’s brilliantly clean hair the alpha combed till whorls of waving locks lay unmated and flattering once more.

Years seemed to have been taken off Q’s face and frame and James’ bruised heart managed to calm and swell again in pride. _He_ had done that. He had been the one to restore Q. And there was no question of the peace in Q’s expression that his omega was resting, moving, even breathing easier because of it.

The pure temptation of the sight before him, pale but pinkened skin so smooth and unbelievably still so untouched, so purely _his_ yet not truly smelling of him yet, was almost too much to bear. The need to mark, to have Q wearing his scent again and plainly taken for all to see, was unbelievable.

James had thought he’d never wanted to claim anything as much as he had Q during their first heat, but he was wrong. There had been too many other emotions cloying the air back then too. Threats of other wolves, of the oncoming storm, of the fact that he’d been ordered into it and Q had even less choice…

But now Q looked, although achingly under-loved for the past age, like some wild untamed thing that had come to sit at James’ lap. Something he’d had and lost and _wanted_ and re-found and here Q was, bare as the day he was born and unblemished, untouched by others in a way that hadn’t been true for any other wolf before.

Q had been alone for months, before that had resisted the pull of nature’s drive and distance from James, had gone through his heats alone and untouched… The loyalty was so overwhelmingly unshakable that James felt staggered by it. Of course, he hadn’t touched another wolf that way either. But it had been one of his darkest, most corrosive fears that Q would seek pleasure, help, in someone else, anyone else.

To find him again like this, wild and free and unmarked by others in a way that seemed almost virginal… and he’d been so responsive to James’ touches too, just like the alpha remembered, a leaf bending to the sun.

He was starting to see that what his pounding heart was telling him as his hand ghosted up and down Q’s sleeping flank, was that this was a second chance.

This time, Q had come to him by choice. It was almost such a reversal of roles that James chuckled, quite tickled at being sought out by a beautiful and brilliant omega. There was no threat, the world was at peace, their positions had never been more secure with Q’s confidence and James’ unshaken role as head of the pack. There were no demands, save the physical, James had waited for Q, Q had come home to him, they had _chosen_ each other in a way that may have been instigated with their initial meeting, but proved they were more than that. No other wolves this time around had touched Q, had the chance to scare him. It felt like James could finally wipe away the damage that was done to Q in that respect and had made it so hard for the omega to view alphas and touch as anything other than violence. This time it would _only_ be good.

Finally, and most importantly, James realised the most crucial thing.

Unlike wolves mating for centuries before them, he and Q now had the luxury of time. Q wasn’t recovered, he _couldn’t_ go into heat yet, but neither was he too young for it and scared. They had the luxury of time to fall back into each other without the pressure of a five-day heat boring down on them. The thing that made alphas wild and omegas worryingly willing and got both sexes hurt. Heat should be a wonderful boon to mated wolves, not the thing that forced unhappy pairs together and destroyed any chance at initial fondness and intimacy.

The pair of them, however, now had the chance to know each other again, fully, be recovered fully (something they’d certainly not experienced before) and then whenever Q’s heat swung back into cycle they could enjoy it completely. Knowing it was going to be something, James hoped beyond reason, that was far more pleasurable for both of them then it had been for wolves under the knife for years.

His hand slid across Q’s belly ad the alpha found that the strength to overcome his ingrained urges to claim now wasn’t as hard to grasp as he had feared. James let his head rest against Q’s for a moment, spare hand stroking through delightfully soft hair, and felt an anticipation grip him so hard he grinned.

They would be each other’s again, and it would be worth the wait and all the sweeter for it. Still, he couldn’t help pressing a series of kisses down Q’s eyebrow, cheek, mouth, jaw and neck until he was sucking a bruise there gently, so slowly that Q only shifted in contentment, neck tilting like an offering.

He was set in his intentions and dedication to caring Q back to health _first_ … But there was no harm in a little visible reminder for everyone else in the pack, and something to steady his nerves in the meantime too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our wolves have a bit of healing to do, but their struggles are largely over now. Next week, we meet some old and new faces!  
> Oh in terms of the picture we have Sherlock and Q on the left, Mycroft and Q on the right n_n  
> Ciao for now!


	9. Encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, sorry this chapter is a bit late but it needed some work. I'm still not entirely happy with some bits but sometimes that can't be helped!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I have stolen some more characters from other films/TV, so kudos if you spot them all!

[](http://imgur.com/IdZ6Pmh)

 

\---

 

“Are you entirely sure-“

“ _Yes_ Mycroft. I doubt it’ll do me in to take a walk.” Mycroft’s slight sneer suggested that Q’s words were in poor taste, and he felt a little bad, reaching out to pat his brother on the hand.

“Sorry, I’m just feeling a little cooped up.”

“The longer you rest for now the less cooped up you’ll be later. You’re still far too thin.” The alpha’s words were a hair away from making it an order, not that Q was bound to obey them anymore. Even if he didn’t have a mate, interestingly, it seemed that due to having led his own pack he’d skipped up the dominance hierarchy by quite some way. The other alphas in the MI6 pack weren’t even trying it on, and in fact treated him with respect he’d not expected… Of course, it helped that James would rip off the heads of anyone who tried to touch him.

And that many wolves, not only the alphas, saw him as the way they were going to get omegas. The pack had been told his story at a large feast in the main den. Q had slept for most of the day up until that point, prepared when the time came to answer the deluge of questions and queries from wolves that couldn’t quite believe their ears.

_“Can we get back across? Can we go the way you came and find them?”_

_“We could unite the packs!”_

_“They might not want to…”_

_“Surely they need alphas too, though?”_

_James could clearly see anarchy descending and Q had visions of wolves running to the entrance of his mountain path and the perils beyond._

_“The way to get back is treacherous and long, and before any wolf tries to cross I would howl to the other side to get their permission to do so. These are live wolves were talking about, not a commodity to be taken.”_

_“You’re going to keep the way to yourself in case you need to run again aren’t you?!”_

_Amidst the swarm of noise produced from that and James growling the other wolves down along with their friends Q had seen little choice in anything but the truth, standing up and looking at James briefly in warning._

_“The path is not safe. Getting here nearly killed me. And I’m not recovered yet.” It was as close to alluding he was suffering as Q could bring himself to say, and still there were mutinous looks from a couple of eager alphas._

_“And before any of you suggest that my mate’s gender hindered him, or made him weak for travel, I’ll have you know that his drive to get back to me, his loyalty, is the only thing that got him back in one piece. Gave him the mental fortitude to survive. Can any of you say the same determination of yourselves?” There was a growing uncomfortability in the room at James’ words as the alpha reached to hold Q’s hand. Everyone knew, and accepted that the drive of a bonded pair to be together was one that defied obstacles others could not. It was more powerful than need, or fear._

_“If I may, I also believe, and John will concur, that Q’s gender was one of the few things that allowed him to make it.” Mycroft interrupted candidly, but couldn’t continue against protests of surprise before Sherlock piped up._

_“Omegas can survive a week without food or water, and longer still without food, on occasional supplements they can survive several months and still produce milk. Betas can manage to get by on meagre rations for a as many months, without food and water entirely four days, without food closer to a month… alphas, however, can manage at most only a short sharp burst of three days without both, or a week and a half without food, three weeks on meagre rations, before being unable to function or succumbing to death.” The sharp, rational words hung in the sobered silence for a minute until Q had to break it, partly in fear of being seen as yet another obstacle or unavailable temptation dangled before the hungry, yearning pack._

_“Not to mention, at some points the path was barely big enough for me, I doubt any better fed wolf would have fit.” There were a couple of chortles and a few glances towards the bulkier, cowed alphas or slightly plumper wolves like Mycroft. “It is my intention to contact the other side and discuss options with them as much as possible, with a view to reconnecting the packs if they are amenable to it. If they are then the journey will have to be carefully planned and the way will have to be prepared, and repaired as we go along. It would be a lengthy process but there is no point in charging through it to become stuck, or to cause a collapse that would separate the two packs indefinitely. Should we choose to make the journey, it will require many of you for skill and knowledge to make the passage safe and feasible for a group of wolves. The journey itself takes about three months. To make it safe will take longer still, but be worth it. After all, some wolves may want to come back here.” The idea of that sent a few people tittering with excitement. Some were whispering about the fact that they helped James blaze the High Trail to make the omega pack’s safe-land in spring last year, others nattered about their craft skills being useful, or fantasised on the idea of seeing omegas come over the hill, or friends who had jumped over in the first wave… Q had been asked by a couple of wolves about who had survived the journey._

_“And if they do not want to join with us, then that is a decision we shall have to respect… I don’t believe this will be the case, but they will certainly have reservations about a large pack moving on them. For one thing they live very differently, and for another I can promise you that not a single one of them will ever take part in a Run-“_

_There was another rise in noise of surprise and questions, asking about how they would choose mates without a Run, mostly. Lestrade, surprisingly, halted the tide of noise._

_“Now listen here! The wolves over there don’t have a Run at all, and given that Q arrived there chased by twenty odd alphas they can be understood in not wanting to join in! If this plan goes ahead then both packs will need to discuss mating ritual in full, and wolves will have to be compliant with that, as it stands though, we might as well get there first right?” Q breathed a sigh of relief over Lestrade’s words, he kept forgetting the man had been a pack leader himself, and that he had lost an alpha child to the Run._

_“Any more questions?” James asked after the silence had settled. He was remarkably patient as a pack leader, Q found. Always ready to step in but also prone to silent observing of the room. Without a doubt, the omega knew his mate would put a stop to any threats, but that he trusted others to talk around and ‘for’ him allowed a level of relaxation and openness to pack meetings that lulled people into speaking their minds honestly… Really, it was very clever._

_“…What happened to your babies?” A beta mother turned to shush her daughter but not before Q could see the intrigued crowd perk up to listen to the innocent question. Of course, they had played it that way at the time, he remembered. James squeezed Q’s hand slightly as the omega looked down. They had talked about this, planned it. With Sherlock and John who had been in on James and Q’s secrets since they met in the woods after the Run. Mycroft might suspect that the pair had blown their pregnancy slightly into proportion to fit the times, but he had no proof, and hadn’t asked Q of it directly either because he couldn’t contemplate his baby brother’s pregnancy, or couldn’t contemplate it failing._

_“I lost them.” Q murmured, and for all he knew it was the truth, but it hurt to even say it. To admit that it was possible. “The timing wasn’t good.” It was the common reason given. Winter pregnancies were suspected of such anyway, but in front of these wolves that knew about the stress, about the fighting, about the separation, and none of them were stupid and couldn’t put two and two together. It added a certain levity to the idea of running off to claim mates, at least, the reminder that things go wrong even when a bond is strong, and that forming a strong bond is not as easy as running down a mate. It was a reminder of all that they’d lost._

_“Will you have more?” The same girl, hushed again but not before another beta child, a boy this time spoke up too._

_“Yeah we want baby puppies!”_

_“Pack leader puppies!” Giggled a third in their group as they glanced at James cheekily._

_The rest of the wolves didn’t seem to be able to fight the enthusiasm however, looking at the pair on the platform with eager eyes or chortling. Of course, separated from their own omega pack as they were, these wolves wouldn’t have seen that for decades. Betas of course still had children, but the fight had claimed beta lives too, not to mention the rebel pack as they swept through the forests and swamplands. Even though all wolves treasured pups, and betas were able to produce small litters of one to three that were cherished and cared for by everyone, nearly all wolves had been refused something that was in their blood for far too long. With numbers critically low all round it didn’t help._

_MI6 used to be strong of over a hundred wolves, now down to just fifty. Thirty betas aged between seventy and seven, twenty alphas aged between fifty and seventeen. Not including James’ inner circle, but still._

_And all the packs had suffered similar or greater losses. Some, like Lestrade’s and many others, had been wiped out entirely._

_What they needed now was some hope. Their pack leader siring pups, mate pregnant, whelping and introducing new alphas and omegas and future to the pack to be cared for and raised would be something they all wanted._

_“Yes.” Q blurted, at the same time as James said;_

_“It’s something on my mind.” with a rumble and meaningful smirk._

Since their meeting, the group _had_ discussed Q’s route, what would be needed to create a safe passage, whether they would actually have the man power to keep it functional and safe at all times of the year. Not every wolf would want to be stuck in the mountain manning a food station. In fact Q could think of few who would want that. But he could see the journey becoming a quicker one if the passages were cleared out and there was available food and water, ways marked and made safer.

It would be a long undertaking. And he still needed to let Alec and Eve and everybody know that he was even alive. Everyone had been strangely reluctant about letting Q go up there again whilst he was so weak though. He supposed he could understand it. Certainly the naked fear, swiftly covered up, in James’ eyes whenever Q mentioned it kept him at bay for the moment.

Alec had heard nothing for half a year, hopefully another couple of weeks wouldn’t hurt him, especially as there was no guarantee Q’s voice would reach him, even with James howling alongside him.

For today, he’d tried a different method to get out of the den. Not that he didn’t like their den, but travelling for so long had left a taste for the wind in him… and he still felt a bit wary of being underground. He wasn’t meant to do too much however. Even with four days of lounging with James and being treated to baths, having food whenever he wanted it –which was nearly always- Q could tell he wasn’t quite back to his old self.

But James was due to go and check on the omega pack and get an update from Ros and Lukas, and was quite keen for Q to come with him.

“They’ll want to see you.” He’d said, and Q had felt little different. After being able to experience omega company, and having lost it, he found that he missed it on an instinctual level.

He wanted to see Severine and her remaining pup too, needed to see for his own eyes that they were okay, looked after. The loss Severine must have felt, Q couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t imagine how she’d coped with it. And Felix too, the alpha was probably wrecked. There were other omegas there too that Q was curious about. Ones who had shared his situation and pain, or worse, and could understand him in a way that the omegas he’d been leader of had struggled to do with anything other than pity and confusion. Q had looked strong when he’d come to them, they had no notion or ability to contemplate just what it was that would have driven him into that confidence.

To Mycroft they excused it with the fact that there were hot springs there, apparently, and cool streams that would help with his therapy and relaxation. John had simply agreed that being with his own kind would be a healing in itself. That didn’t, of course, stop Mycroft from worrying a bit. Sherlock had gone off a couple of days ago to sniff out what other packs knew of Q’s return, what they were planning.

He’d had the nonchalance to talk plainly as he was packing a bag.

“It would help if you were pregnant again by the time I come back. Just in case.” And left as simply as that, obviously caring little whether they were ‘faking’ another pregnancy or not. James hadn’t even had time to growl at him.

The matter was put from their minds pleasantly enough with the knowledge that they were going to be travelling together again. Even if just for a couple of hours till they reached the omega pack, Q couldn’t wait to stretch his legs for a longer walk, especially next to James as they once had. By the light in his alpha’s eyes, James was just as pleased.

“Come on,” The older man intoned for just Q to hear, voice a warm murmur as he held out a hand Q gladly took, grinning, to be pulled along the way. They’d had precious little time alone in the week Q had been back, and the journey was just what they needed.

Walking along over sun-struck grass and witnessing staggering views, scenting the air and each other so close and untempered, was uplifting and rewarding for the pair of them.

Great contentment stole over Q an hour into their walk, and he playfully bumped James’ shoulder just to see him smile and wrap an arm around Q’s waist.

“Did I ever tell you your eyes are stunning?” James smoothed, clearly enjoying Q’s coy smile and blush.

“Either way I like hearing it. Yours are the shade of a glacier, you know. I’d never found something quite the right shade before that.”

“I like to think of you walking around trying to find my eye colour.” James replied, satisfied as his fingers curled into Q’s waist contentedly.

“Mm these help,” Q mentioned, bringing his hands up to tilt the frames of his repaired glasses, courtesy of the pack. “I hadn’t realised how scratched they were.”

“Can you hunt as a wolf without them?” James asked, genuinely curious, Q smiled a bit.

“I can, but it’s not my particular forte.” The alpha contemplated this for a moment, leaning slightly to sniff Q’s hair.

“I want to go hunting with you again.”

“I’d like that.”

“But on a pack hunt… I’d rather bring you back meat.” The way James said it was a little cautious, inferring slightly that he’d like Q not to be involved. Q could only really feel relief. He enjoyed running, chasing, he had enjoyed hunting with James the one time they had done it, but the intensity of managing or being part of a pack on a hunt, even with the omegas, had reminded him a little too much of the energy of his Run. Q expected James wasn’t aware of that, which he was quite grateful for, it was nice to not have everything tainted by their Run. James seemed more interested in providing for Q, and after so long providing for himself, well, that was a delightful indulgence in its own right.

“I’d like that too.” He smiled over, and saw James relax as he ducked briefly to kiss Q’s cheek, fingers twisting a little for a firmer hold in the shirt he was wearing. “As long as I don’t have to cook it myself, I’m afraid that’s one skill I never improved on.” James grinned slowly, warmth in his eyes.

“I like cooking, I’m actually rather good at it.”

“I know,” Q hummed affectionately, and he did, about the second, James was good at it. But though he’d thought about the first he’d never had it confirmed…

It was nice; to know they’d have time for learning those little intimacies now. It felt oddly close to perfect.

-00Q00-

The omega pack lived on a slightly lower plateau than the main MI6 pack. Sheltered and tiered as it was by the springs and mountainsides there were trees amidst the grass and flowers. Q had to admit that coming into the tranquil, summer-touched area of gentle rises and falls looked something close to perfection. There were a couple of house-like structures under construction and many entrances to dens. The pack looked like it lived a close-knit life. Before they could reach the pack proper they were halted by a howled, organised troop of three young alphas, two female and a male, who quickly turned from protective to sheepish and then stunned as they took in first James and then Q.

“We didn’t believe it…”

“Molly, Tariq, Tom, what are you-“ Ros’ sharp tone cut off shortly as she and another similarly coloured female alpha, smaller, came alongside the group. The three youngest alphas shuffled but Ros shifted into her skin with a smirked smile of pride and welcome. The alpha next to her whined and drew a white shawl from around her shoulders, holding it pointedly to the other. Ros slipped it around her body as if humouring the other was commonplace.

“Long time no see, excuse the pups, they’re learning.” Q couldn’t help smiling at the familiar sight of Ros’ sleek bobbed hair, even as the wolves around them shifted into skin politely, all drawing the same scarf-like shawls they wore on their necks around their bodies.

“Learning that our elders have a distinct lack of manners. Jo,” the equally white-blonde wolf that had arrived with Ros introduced, her hair cropped close to her head. “I’m this one’s sister, it’s such an honour to meet you Q.” She held out a hand in such an old-fashioned greeting, her voice so soft and calm, warm that Q couldn’t help smiling at James bemusedly as he accepted, flushing at the complement. Ros and her sister couldn’t be more different. James, to his credit, only grumbled just-audibly when Jo delicately flipped over the wrist on his captured hand to sniff daintily at his pulse for a moment. He was released quickly, but found that the formal greeting of respect left him a little impressed.

“Well we can’t all possess enough tact to hold up proceedings. James, Q, welcome. These three are your latest shipment to us.

“We’re here to defend the pack!” Tom puffed out importantly. The three wolves must be around Q’s age… he spared a brief thought for the fact that they’d probably all been on his Run before shutting it off quickly. Molly stepped on Tom’s toes and then offered a nervous, awkward smile.

“You don’t need to tell them, Sherlock will have… You don’t look as tall as Sherlock.” Q blinked, supposing that last murmured words and the slight disappointment in them were for him, and finding himself mildly confused by it.

“We want to help where we can. In fact, your lanterns, I’ve wanted to-“

“Not now Tariq, perhaps you can accost our guests later at dinner. If you’re staying that long?” Ros cut across, posing the last half as a question for the pair of them.

“As long as we’re welcome.” James grinned, Ros rolling her eyes.

“Behave yourselves and then you’re welcomed. Come on, the others are dying to see you.”

Dutifully, with James reaching to take Q’s hand again, the motley group followed. Behind them the three younger alphas were squabbling good-naturedly.

The middle of the plateau and an assortment of outdoor cooking fires heralded two more adult wolves and an assortment of pups. One of the wolves Q recognised as Lukas, who turned when he heard the group coming with a great smile. The alpha male next to him looked on with unreadable eyes as Lukas hurdled a sitting-rock and came up to Q beaming.

“We meet again.”

“We do, better circumstances this time.” Q couldn’t help grinning, and felt a little amused pleasure of warmth as James shifted almost jealously at his side.

“Erik.” James greeted with a nod, and received one with a slight grin in return. Q thought the man had a lot of teeth, and didn’t particularly like the predatory way he moved. It wasn’t dissimilar to James’ prowl, but he had always felt a little safer when it came from James.

“James. Your mate?” the man indicated Q, and James inclined his head up proudly, hand tightening on Q’s waist. “Wonders never cease-“

“Stop scaring him Erik.” Q glanced to the right towards the group of children, surprised when two adults emerged from their midst that must have been lying down. The one who addressed Erik, voice treading the line of exasperation and weary too finely for Q to differentiate, switched his blue-eyed gaze from the alpha to Q. “Welcome, friend.” Q caught the scent of his own kind, multiplied from the curious, chattering children of multiple sexes and genders and found his eyelids fluttering briefly.

Being home was perfect, but the scent of his pack from the other side of the mountain held something indescribable too. The smell of omegas, calm ones, brought him right back there. With a whine Q shifted quick as a fish into his fur and darted forwards. He forgot about the shirt tangled around his forelegs even as his trousers slid off with the transformation, until the sleeves tripped him a bit.

Q had only managed two bounds towards the omega scent before with a great snarl something barrelled into him from the side and bowled him off his feet. Taken by surprise and with the wind punched out of him Q didn’t have time to react before teeth caught at the thick fur on his throat mid-roll and caught him up only to slam him back down to the ground, pinned under a lean, muscled tan alpha. The omega had only seconds to feel a panic that froze him, followed by a more recently familiar rage and assertiveness. He had no sooner snarled and twisted, slightly un-footing the surprised but unforgiving alpha and bent his back legs up to kick sharply into the belly above him when the familiar snout of James bit down aggressively around the sides of the tan alpha’s.

The snarl in James’ face and throat spoke volumes as his teeth pressed threateningly onto the other’s stretched muzzle. Q, though still shocked and enraged at the attack, couldn’t help but go limp at the sight of James’ focused eyes, his rising scent of dominance. Even so, the other didn’t back down immediately, his own snarl stubborn until Q became aware of other alphas surrounding them.

“Ease off bub, that’s not a move you want to pull.” Came an unfamiliar growl.

“Lensherr,” Lukas’ was obvious, and full of more threat.

“Drop him.” Ros snapped darkly. In the background the younger alphas were whining or growling and barking and Q realised the only reason the lot of them hadn’t attacked a wolf who had a valuable omega –at least, and a friend at most- by the throat, was because this ‘Erik’ had _him_ by the throat. Q tried twisting a little, experimentally, the teeth points on his neck spiking his heart with pain and threat.

_What if he can bite faster than James?_ But the teeth only tightened on him and at his slight yelp of pain and panic James’ fangs bit down _hard_ on the side of Erik’s jaws, pain and pressure applied only where it wouldn’t increase the bite pressure on Q’s neck. Q felt blood drop into his fur as James’ teeth made short work slicing through the more delicate skin of the face. The other alpha grunted in pain but otherwise remained wild-eyed and feral in his determined growl.

“Erik that’s enough!” The tone was from a softer voice, though no less fearsome in it’s snap and urgency. Q watched Erik’s eyes flick up, his own following, panicked, to see the blue-eyed omega, now a brown-ish wolf who was meeting Erik’s eyes with a steady, burning warning. At the same time, a _safe_ sort of scent rose slightly in the air from the omega, implausible given the situation, but it calmed Erik just slightly.

“ _Charles_ -“ It sounded like a query, a growl, a plea… muffled by the fur of Q’s neck between his jaws.

“Put. Him. Down.” The omega, Charles enunciated clearly, voice crystalline, and slowly, slowly Erik’s jaws loosened and he backed off as Q wriggled away under James’ legs, panting. His alpha didn’t remain long as the solid weight of James charged into Erik, knocking him down even as he snarled in defence and proceeded to pin him instead. Q spared a few moments to just watch James’ harsh disciplining, not allowing the other alpha to even twitch without his teeth biting down threateningly on his neck. His mate’s growl seemed to shake through the earth and vibrate under Q, who looked on amazed as even this Erik yelped when James’ frustration led him to shake the other.

Another, slightly anxious whine next to him and Q saw the other omega slink oddly towards the melee. The crowding alphas parted to let him through although one hulking black and grey one grumbled in concern and worry. He watched again, shocked, as the omega’s presence stilled James’ shaking of the other alpha and lessened the growl as Charles lip-licked in appeasement, first on his belly and then rolling over, whining.

There was another choked whisper of ‘ _Charles_ ’ from Erik and James less dropped the alpha more spat him out.

Once detached Q noticed that James looked almost double the size of Erik with his hackles up, his thicker fur and more muscular frame an imposing sight.

“You’re lucky your mate loves you.” James snapped, voice poisonous, and the surrounding wolves winced as if the words were a low blow. James seemed entirely unrepentant.

Q wondered what had changed about him, that he could entirely agree with James, whilst also painfully registering the hurt in the other mated pair as they were left to collect themselves. He wouldn’t have treated one alpha who attacked another omega any differently than James had… but that was on the other side of the mountain, where the same stressors didn’t exist. Over here, every wolf in contact with an omega had felt the poison of The Run.

“Q,” James returned to him, one eye still on Lensherr, who was getting to his feet, wincing and shaking the moment off as Charles muttered something inaudible to him.

“I’m okay,” He murmured, eyes still caught on the other odd pair. Erik nudged his nose into Charles’ fur, and there the two of them stayed for a long while. Q’s hearing was sharp enough to pick up a murmured ‘ _he shouldn’t have run at you_ ’ from Erik. ‘ _No, but you should have just blocked him, Erik, for Blanca’s sake…_ ’ was returned.

“Let me see,” James’ nose brought him back to present and nudged his chin up. Q complied, and could feel James’ palpable unhappiness as he licked pinpricks of blood off Q’s cream coat, torn fur coming away on his tongue.

“Better not tell Mycroft. He’ll have our heads.” Q murmured, opening his closed eyes. In front of him were several worried looking children.

Automatically, Q wrinkled his nose in a friendly manner, lying down though he was, and thumped his tail. The tension in the small group seemed to ease, helped by Charles’ body slinking back over in that odd-hurt way until he could nose beside James licking Q’s neck.

“I’m so so sorry. That was an awful thing, he’s normally not this volatile but my last heat just finished and, oh you poor thing.” Q whined a little, hopefully reassuringly, at the fretting omega and lifted his nose to lick the other’s face.

The attack had hardly been his worst, eye Erik’s lurking, watchful wolf form warily though he did.

“It’s not your fault, I’m fine.” Erik didn’t look the type to apologise, but Q was as certain that Charles shouldn’t have to apologise for him as he was that the sun rose every morning. His fellow omega looked worried still and quick as lightning darted out to scruff an unseen pounce from a sandy wolf cub.

“Alex, we _do not_ pounce on people.”

“But daddy did it-“

“We also do not learn our welcome skills from your father do we?”

“… _No_.” Alex dragged out, sullenly.

“I was a little fast.” Q admitted, a pup-like shame of his own flaring a little bit.

“You _are_ prone at running into things before thought… but that doesn’t deserve attack.” James responded pointedly, his grumble rumbling against Q’s side from where they were pressed close together. There was a little, childish snort from a couple of older girls who were covering their mouths in amusement.

“He’s got a shirt on.” One of them pointed out to the other two, and Q lifted a paw to observe the sleeve dangling from it.

“You also have a habit for that.” James pointed out fondly, voice a bit calmer as he nudged Q through the shirt.

“Here, here let me help.” Charles shifted back into his skin, adorned with the same scarf-shawl-wrap that they all seemed to have, and prised Q free with sturdy fingers.

The angle he was sitting at his legs on looked awkward and uncomfortable and a little wrong. It answered a few questions about the odd slinked movements in his fur.

Pushing the issue aside as not his own, Q sniffed the man’s fingers and licked the saltiness off them a little before snuffling at his hair. Charles chuckled, and Q let himself indulge in a little head-scratch before the omega was gesturing the children forwards.

“Want the introductions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of drama still lives close to home, but gradually the lives for omegas are improving.  
> Most of the new slew of characters here are from Xmen First Class/the xmen franchise as a whole (which I dearly love)... And now consequently want to write a spin off with Erik and Charles' storyline from this verse xD *sigh* heaven help me. This week's picture features Charles greeting Q. Because Cute!Omega-bro time FTW!
> 
> We also have some more Spooks characters (Tariq and Jo - who is not Ros' sister in the actual show, in case you're curious)  
> And of course I had to throw in Molly somewhere, and her hapless Sherlock look-a-like Tom xD Because why the hell not?
> 
> Thank you for reading, last week's comments made me grin a bit too much during break at work, shame on you beautiful people! ;D  
> See you next week(ish)! (I will try to be on time!)


	10. Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, this time, lateness was not my fault. The internet was broken for most of this week, but now it's back woohoo!  
>  **WARNING: Mentions/insinuations of child abuse/abandonment of secondary characters.**

[](http://imgur.com/aHHXz1P)

 

\---

 

The children turned out to be a delightful mix of ages and temperaments. The oldest, a twelve-year-old red coloured omega female named, curiously, Rogue had been shy and reticent until she braved asking Q if his Run was as awful as Charles and Severine’s; clearly worried about the possibility of her own. Q hadn’t known how to lie to her, and simply responded that his had ended better than he could have imagined, and that he didn’t intend to ever let another one take place. He had no idea what, if any, hope that would be. She’d been picked up and somewhat adopted by Logan, the large black and grey alpha who’d tried to step in and calm Erik.

Nearest in age to her was a large litter with one female omega, chaperoned by two elder sisters from a previous litter. Their alpha father had died of a broken heart after his mate fell to the disease. The two sisters turned up bickering and heavily pregnant with harassed looking mates. Q could only watch impressed, feeling a kernel of hope that not only was life being sustained here, but created. A true pack going about their lives.

Unfortunately, most of the omegas had arrived here with sad stories. Some barely comprehendable and sickening. One named Angel had been saved from her father’s maddened attentions and stolen away here by her brother, Darwin, for protection. Two passing beta males had stumbled across another girl, Shaz, in the aftermath of a flood that had killed her remaining alpha parent and siblings. The pair of friends clearly felt in over their heads and still unsure how they had ended up adopting and raising a vulnerable pup… Especially given that they expressed to Q with wide eyes that they’d only desired to live as lone bachelor wolves for a few years.

Some families had remained better intact, much to Q’s relief. A rather vivacious alpha female had brought not only her one remaining of four omega pup here, but had also encouraged along her own omega mother and the older wolf’s closest friend. Lix had evidently insisted on keeping her remaining family together and safely packed as much as possible.

Charles and Erik, even, had adopted an abandoned omega pup despite the pair only recently giving birth to their first litter of three. The boy looked almost comically ungainly and shy at age nine, surrounded by his seven and five year old excitable surrogate siblings.

“We found him just after I’d had my first litter, he was a year older but he was abandoned for some reason, barely out of his pup-time. I couldn’t let him starve.” Charles told Q quietly as many of the pups shifted and began to fur-pile on top of them, the excitement wearing them out.

Running his hand through the different colours and textures of soft puppy fur as they curled warm on top of his legs, some rather boney in their adolescent age, Q felt both contented and heavy with less cheerful emotion. They were all here, they were safe… but even this young they’d been through nightmares.

If he and James had pups… _when_ they had pups, he just hoped there was a better world for them.

Closest to Q’s chest was the achingly familiar curl of Severine and Felix’s omega pup. He’d recognised Q’s scent, on some level, from where he was ducked and quiet at the back of the group, and had surged forwards with little puppyish darts of bravery until Q had armfuls of the four-year-old. The whimpering pup had been soothed only by the longest of nuzzles. Eventually shivers subsided and the pup went lax and exhausted in Q’s arms. He had a feeling that if the pup had been in his skin he’d have been crying.

“Bram,” Charles informed him quietly, Q blinked in some pained sorrow that he’d never even learnt the pups’ names at the time. “We heard about, about what happened. He hasn’t recovered from the trauma, or what happened to his brother.” The thought led him to press kisses over the little striped thing’s nose and ears, gaining a more contented wriggle as he ignored the prickling in his own eyes.

Q was just beginning to get a bit-too warm under his living fur blanket, Bram somehow managing to climb until he was curled heavily on Q’s shoulder against his neck, when a shocked, tight with emotion scream wrought the air.

Both omegas, the group of alphas and betas around the cooking fire and the startled pups looked up at the sound. There, running towards them as she flung a basket of plants and herbs away, was Severine, heading straight for Q.

Instinctually he stood up, scattering pups and Bram still clasped in his arms, and staggered over the rousing puppies to meet her as she pulled him into an embrace. The pup between them wriggled a bit as he was squashed but all Q could think about was holding onto the omega who’d touched him more than he knew. Scenting her shaking neck as he clung to her Q became aware that they were both crying, Severine a lot more openly in shuddering gasps than Q’s damp lashes, and that the alphas in the background were talking as if this was something to talk about. James’ voice was absent, though he could feel his mate’s warm gaze.

Next to them, Felix was looking stunned.

“Brother I half didn’t believe it.” Q felt the warm voice roll over him with a breathed laugh in disbelief himself.

“Don’t get y’self in a twist son, this one’s as bold as brass.” Q blinked through his tears with a questioning noise at the older alpha voice, and was met by a tough yet kindly face obscured with beard.

“Q, meet Kincade.” James announced, arriving next to him and gesturing at the older man. Q vaguely offered his hand to be held and wrist sniffed when the elder reached for him, allowing himself and Severine to untwine slightly whilst keeping an arm each around each other.

“Pleasure to meet you I’m sure, been keeping this one in knots or in place have you?” the voice was roguish and doubled with a wink. Q’s released hand went back to Severine’s shockingly soft, well-groomed hair. Between them Bram poked his head up for air with a gasp and they detached fully so Q could transfer him over. Turning into his skin the pup hugged his mother and murmured ‘safe friend’ into her hair.

“Safe friend,” She replied back, voice less wrecked, more natural purr, and managing a watery smile. “Welcome friend.”

“I’m happy to see you too,” Q murmured back, softly with a smile, and turned to Kincade and Felix. “And both of you, of course.

“Is this him, James? Have you finally brought him here!” Q blinked as an older male omega bumbled up eagerly beside the lot of them and without pausing brushed through to gather Q into a squeezing hug.

“My dear boy! It’s such a pleasure to meet you, the things we’ve heard! Come, come, you must tell me all about your journey, you know I explored too once! Well, my alpha did, Lobo guard his soul, and I made this wonderful pack for him to wear as both a human and a wolf to help him get by- James has one you know-“

“And this is Boothroyd.” Q heard James announce with mildly fond exasperation in the background as Q was wheeled towards the cooking area by genial hands.

The whole pack turned up for lunch, and Q, leaning back against James’ knees and squidged between Severine, Boothroyd and several ravenous pups, felt both hopeful and relaxed, eased.

They were happy here, they were coping. Maybe better than that even, he reflected as he watched Severine accept food from Felix as the alpha ruffled the hair of their pup.

Once Q had eaten all he could, and had Boothroyd’s arm draped around his shoulders, the half-forgotten scent of older, responsible omega that reminded him of his parents seemed to wrap around his senses. Boothroyd was nattering away in a wonderful lullaby of mechanics and James’ legs behind his back were warm.

What with all the activity of the morning compared to the restful days previous, and the warmth of company and a mixed pack scent around him, Q found himself leaning increasingly heavily onto Boothroyd’s side until he fell asleep.

-00Q00-

James had been loathe to wake Q when he looked so peacefully asleep against the older omega… The alpha couldn’t help wondering if his mate was reminded of his own mother. He frowned for a moment, Q had never mentioned a father, only his mother whom James recalled was an alpha, yet had evidently carried him.

The thought was one to question later. As it was, Boothroyd had been stroking through the careless waves of Q’s hair with a fond, doting expression on his lively face. Kincade was watching the pair and chuckling.

“Adopting another one are you? Thought you said you’d ‘spawned’ enough Geoffrey.” Boothroyd huffed.

“Always room for a little one Kincade. Besides, this one’s quite the genius. Be proud if he was my own.” The older alpha chuckled and shook his head in amusement at the haughty tone. James found he thought Q and Boothroyd were plenty similar for an adoption to go undetected, especially with their brains. Kincade, who had been friends and possibly something more with Boothroyd for longer than James had known the omega existed, seemed to agree with raised brows.

Q roused slowly when gently rocked a little under James’ hand, and blinked blearily for a moment before startling off Boothroyd’s shoulder apologetically.

“Not to worry, pup, happy a boney shoulder’s still a good pillow.” Flushed a bit, Q nodded his thanks and turned to Bond, yawning widely and smiling at him.

“If I don’t take you to those baths Mycroft will have my head. They’re a little higher on the way back.”

 

“Okay,” Before James could suggest to say goodbyes for now, Severine had moved over from where she was encouraging her pup to eat and clasped onto Q’s forearm. He watched, curious, as Q mimicked the gesture, thumb stroking the underside of her forearm comfortingly for a few moments, followed by the omega leaning forward for a cheek-cheek nuzzle.

Clasping him tightly around the arm and then shoulder Severine whispered “Come back to me soon,” into Q’s hair. The murmur of Q’s affirmative soft in reply.

James nodded and grinned and grumbled his goodbyes. Over where Erik and his family sat, huddled together in that slightly awkward way temporarily-spurned wolves would, James narrowed his eyes threateningly. It was a shame, really. He had no quarrel with Charles or their brood, and usually got on with Erik fairly well.

But Q had red rows of pinprick tooth-marks around his neck. James could only just keep down his violent, consuming _urge_ to kill, to maim for the necklace of nearly-punctures his mate sported. Charles looked over in a torn way between the two alphas, at least their children seemed oblivious, even to the separation. Erik’s eyes were unreadable and dark as he met James’.

Not for a minute was he going to let that alpha near his mate again.

Even with Q’s penchant for running headfirst into danger, and Erik’s tense personality, the alpha should have known better. Fury and fear curdled in equal measure in James’ gut.

Even if Q wasn’t so newly returned to him, Erik had been lucky James didn’t bite to kill.

The alpha had been shades away from it. Shaking Erik for the transgression, for igniting a blinding panic at the possibility of Q being murdered in front of him, hadn’t been nearly enough. Q hadn’t intervened; James honestly believed that Q was too haunted to ever forbid the death of an alpha that had caused him harm. Luckily for Erik, Charles was haunted in his own way too, had begged sweet and desperate enough that James could lick back his aggression, for now.

Only for now.

He didn’t half doubt that Q would be bearing his own teeth at the alpha if they met again. Something James was determined not to let happen.

As if was, he withstood all he could of the potentially lengthy omega goodbyes, not to mention Ros and Lukas’ own, before scooping Q away.

Fortunately for all involved, other than James’ bloodlust, Erik made a careful point to avert his gaze from anywhere even vaguely near Q, even as Charles waved with a pleasant smile at the omega, who returned his own cheerily enough.

The tension was hard to dismiss from his frame, and as they walked out of sight of the pack, Q noted its lack of dispersal too.

“James? Are you alright?”

“Hardly.” The alpha growled, and continued walking for all of two paces until Q took his hand and pulled the alpha to a gentle stop.

“James,” he repeated softly, lowly, “I’m fine.” The alpha sighed something more like a pained quiet growl and Q closed his eyes. The alpha’s hand was guided to Q’s throat, cupping it gently and bracketed by Q’s own.

“No I’m not.” James’ breath held at Q’s admission, voice pitched low and somewhat resentful. “Sometimes… I really hate it here. There’s too much poison in the water.”

The words seeped through James like a slippery stone.

The same thoughts had been in his mind the last two years. Since meeting Q even.

At first The Run was the depth of the world’s depravity. Then Silva, the rebels… And it was only really after Q’s jump when he was cleaning up the mess that he realised how deep the venom travelled.

Not fifteen years ago omegas had been commonplace, treated if not quite like equals then still respected and approached with the kindness any wolf deserved. Ironically the shortage that should have made them more precious still bred a brand of desperation that seemed to taint the very earth. Alphas, even those with omegas, had forgotten how to treat them.

Yet, he had seen improvement, they’d made leaps and bounds that James’ cynical mind hadn’t believed possible, and Q’s words were a dose of cold water that left him feeling panicky at the fingertips.

Swiftly he grabbed the omega close with a small ‘oomph’ noise from Q that was quietly adorable, and took a moment to breath in the realism of his mate. A decent weight against him, warm, the pressure of bones and fingertips and the pulse beating under his hand on Q’s neck. The hot breath ghosting his own nape.

Problem was, whilst Q was one of the loyalist creatures James had ever been lucky enough to meet, he was wild now too. Not needing to cling to James for safety as he once had.

Not a bit of him thought Q would leave him willingly… but there was the undeniable sense that the wind had made Q it’s plaything and might whisk him away again with any chosen breath.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Q was murmuring against him, voice turning concerned, his own hand cupping James’ nape and stroking a thumb against the skin there soothingly. James breathed deep and inhaled the calming, comforting scent Q was subconsciously broadcasting to ease his alpha. “I’m really not going anywhere you know.” The softly spoken words soothed James further still, though his grip only tightened at the mere thought. Q’s own did too; arms going around James’ shoulders and neck to hold him almost selfishly, hugging him close with a chin propped over his shoulder in a way that had the alpha nearly purring at the possessiveness of it.

“I’m just sick of seeing the worst of everyone in sight. It all seems to come out around me… and I’m _tired_ of it.” Q’s voice hitched and James felt his own throat tighten. “I’m tired of being _hurt_ -“ Q cut off as his voice tightened and his head ducked into James’ neck. “And sometimes, nearly all of the time, the only one I want to see is _you. I love you_.” Q Muttered out, hotly, as if it was an insult that the world kept trying to put other wolves around him and his mate.

The words calmed the tension in James’ chest, along with the gentle laugh that Q’s tense provoked.

He was reminded, once more, fiercely so in a way that shot pride through his heart enough to diminish his temporary panic, that they were meant to be together. As simply as night belonged to day, James knew his heart belonged to Q and mutually in the reverse.

“I hate it too.” He replied, sobering. “Every time you’re hurt, it makes me want to kill.” That his words didn’t make Q shudder in disgust, rather pull at him tighter, left his heart skipping. “I was going to rip his throat out for these.” His murmur was matched by a finger running just under the sharp abrasions on Q’s pale neck. “I wouldn’t have felt remorse either… not even for Charles…” Now that he’d started, that he could feel Q’s fingers rubbing across his shoulder blade without rejection, he couldn’t stop them. Every viciously, selfishly remorseless thought he’d kept to himself.

“When M split us from Felix and Severine on the mountain, I was glad, I’d have sacrificed them in a heartbeat for you. I tore through those wolves without caring that some were pack… After you were gone I _hurt_ them, executed them, punished them and it didn’t matter… It was enough to be doing something for you, even though it felt you’d taken half my soul with you when you jumped over that damn mountain.” His words ended up muffled his nuzzle into Q’s silken hair. “Until today, I thought you were the only wolf who could make me stop. I nearly didn’t, even with Charles there. I didn’t want to.”

Q was silent for a long moment before lilting his head up slightly to kiss James’ neck with firm, lingering affection. When he broke off there was a breath before he spoke.

“Do you want me to stop you?” Q asked, a little cautiously. James waited the longest time, desire to maim anyone who hurt his Q warring with the need to know that someone could pull him back, would still be there whatever the means…

“Yes.” He answered finally, voice gravelly. It was Q’s turn to take a deep breath and pause.

“What if sometimes I don’t want to…” He whispered, as if afraid of the answer.

“I’ll kill if you ask me to.” The words came without pause. Whatever else, James was sure of this much. After all, he hadn’t hesitated to attack Silva, a supposed pack-member, way back when Q shouted that the man had attacked him with a knife. This time, Q did shiver, but he held James closer too. There was silence between them for a few breaths longer until Q snorted out a laugh.

“Bloody morbid we are… and what a pair of pack leaders, planning the death of wolves and wanting to be alone.” James barked out a laugh of his own in surprise, Q’s dark little tone, coloured by an amused smile, breaking the tension left in him. His hands travelled down to Q’s waist and lifted him up slightly before setting him down again, still grinning.

“I think it makes us charming.” He joked, and pulled back to look at Q’s wry smile. Sobering for a moment, James stroked a thumb under Q’s eye, watching the colour of his irises deepen to green pools in the light.

“I don’t want you hurt. I never want you hurt.” Q’s smile turned a bit sad.

“Unfortunately it seems unavoidable at this point.” The omega shrugged. James hummed for a moment, hands tapping at sharp hipbones.

“If you can stand to,” He begun, thoughtfully, rolling what he knew of Lensherr and the other alphas out there in his head. “Next time we go up there, it might be worth staying slightly behind me.” Q frowned at him, a worried thing that made him look so much younger, just like he did when they first met.

“You think he’ll try to attack me again?”

“No, that’s not it. Erik’s a weird one, and all the alphas out there are protective of omegas, if you go back to them in an approach that’s wary, it ought to give him a better understanding of just what he’s doing acting like that. I don’t think he sees it in wolves other than Charles. And it will give the others something to think about too. In a way, over there, I think they’ve grown a bit complacent.”

“Complacent isn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering what they’ve been through.” Q pointed out, eyebrow raised, James nodded in acceptance of that.

“True, but as you pointed out, the world has poison in the water, and they have children. They all need to learn pack-law and manners as much as any other wolf does. Without that they’re barely a pack at all. Whatever they’ve been through, they need to function and communicate as regular wolves, or they’ll never be accepted.” James brushed a curl from Q’s face, feeling a burst of affection and pride for the wolf before him, for _both_ of them. “After all, you’ve managed it, Severine too even. We’re lucky _she_ wasn’t there to see you attacked.”

“I’ve been lucky,” Q said, shaking his head. James scoffed at the mere thought.

“Not hardly, given what you’ve survived through and done.” Q pushed him a bit, gently, a smile curling the corner of his mouth.

“I meant I had _you_.” Q specified, amusedly.

A slow grin cracked James’ face, spreading with the prideful alpha under his skin until he couldn’t resist bending swiftly. Q squawked as James caught him up in his arms growled playfully, bending to nip ticklishly at Q’s neck as he strolled off, relishing the warm weight in his arms straining his muscles slightly.

Q laughed and batted at him before he settled contentedly, arm draped around James’ shoulder and the other tapping a rhythm over the alpha’s heart.

The easy, relaxed way Q sunk into him left James feeling satisfaction all the way down to his toes.

The world may be full of poison in the water, but for him, and for Q, the other would always be the antidote.

-00Q00-

The heat of the springs up here in the mountains was unreal. Compared to the pool in the MI6 den even, it was astounding.

Q slunk slowly down into the water with James’ help, firm hands steadying slippery feet on the smooth rocks below. The sun was casting long, amourous light and shadows through the steam, and the adrenaline of the day curbed to a sated, relaxed lethargy at having James around him.

His alpha’s protectiveness and strong arms, solid presence, was leaving Q a little hypnotised, his mate’s scent heady in the air.

As his hands rubbed up and over James’ muscled chest, danced patterns around his neck and slipped down to hold onto his shoulder blades, the omega let himself happily sink into the simple pleasure of enjoying every facet of the man’s presence. His lips followed the line his hands had travelled over James’ neck, unable to help himself form pressing slow kisses over the wet skin.

James’ own hands were slowly undoing him as they ran over him first with some near-scentless herbs and then just with water. The feeling of heat and hands covering his air-cooled skin and sliding so smoothly was intoxicating.

The pair waded into the deepest part of the pool they could whilst still standing, and ceased in their washing to just hold each other.

Everything in Q seemed bent towards the touch of James, body tingling and warm with emotion. Looking out over the vista of steam and sun, hearing James’ slow passes of breath and gentle rumble of pleasure at having his hands running over the omega, Q felt a giddy excitement for his new, this time safe, life with his alpha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end of this story now (save for any potential sequels) And a HUGE thank you for everyone who has read so far, and an extra thank you for those beautiful comment-leavers out there! Not every chapter has been easy reading, and it's been a long journey, but you guys enjoying this story really make my day!
> 
> A brief note on the characters implemented this chapter; I have stolen characters now from not only X Men but also some from The Hour and some from Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes. They are not all mentioned above, but that is who forms the omega pack. Also, on Severine and Felix's pup, (who is one of the only original characters this story has seen incidentally) his name; Bram, means raven. I decided to keep with the animal theme their family seems to have. Their other pup who they lost was named Fox due to his red colouring.
> 
> I think that's all, and I shall see you next week! Ciao for now :)


	11. Choose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our penultimate chapter everybody! Though it seems strange that we've reached it already to me.  
> And something I think we've all been waiting for ;3  
> Enjoy!
> 
> ( **Warning:** ...Basically just smut!)

[](http://imgur.com/6Zms6MF)

 

\---

 

In the end, it was only half a week after their visit to the omega pack, days of food and rest and occasional strategic and pack meetings; that things seemed to finally swing back into place.

James and Q had been together for nearly every minute, although nearly always with the company of other wolves as per doctor’s orders.

The baths were the one place they were allowed alone together, because having any other wolf around Q when he was naked and pliant would be almost inviting James to attack. The omega could see it in his mate’s eyes sometimes, almost more severe than when they had first met in some ways, that deep burn of protection and possession that James looked at him with.

The fact that James considered him so precious, increasingly so even, without Q showing any signs of a heat and without them being able to re-cement their bond… in a way it relieved Q of tension.

Though not of the desire to be with James again in that most intimate of ways.

They held each other during the night, traded in kisses and touches during the day and talked without the reserve that threat had imposed on them years ago, but they both _needed_ more.

They were young, they were mates, and they were increasingly feeling the pressure of a gossipy pack.

The random encouragement they received from the other wolves in the form of special brews for healing, an offer to meditate, suggestions to lark about under the full moon and one old alpha had even slyly slipped James and Q each an aphrodisiac drink to put into the other’s cup.

Despite the bizarre attention towards the pack’s leading pair, it was almost sweet. Clearly the entirety of MI6 had decided to treat it as the packs’ personal in-joke to see who could get the pair back into complete health and entwinement with each other.

When it did happen, however, it was with a natural grace that Q hadn’t truly believed wolves capable of.

They’d been going to the baths daily, as part of John’s ‘gentle exercise, rest and food’ regime. The time they spent there solely with each other, not even their den was unoccupied now, had become a sanctuary of sorts.

Q often noticed that James became aroused during their time spent shoulders-deep in water resting on one of the natural shelves within the pool. Or when they were washing each other. The firm press of his mate’s erection held no threat for Q, more of a sense of pride that he has been the one to trigger it. Since their first disastrous attempt at sex back in the den, James had accepted without apology but ignored his own arousal with a strength Q found hard to believe.

But this time, things were different. Their last stint in the pool was thumping in Q’s veins enthrallingly, to the point where his mouth was going dry merely remembering it as they de-robed by the poolside. James’ hands slowly slid Q’s robe off before the omega had a chance, and although the alpha’s eyes were dark with lust, his face remained smirking and calm and open as he looked at Q. The man’s penis was already hanging heavy and swollen between his legs, filling with blood at the solitude, the promise of closeness. And as James’ fingers brushed over the left side of his waist and towards his belly, Q thought his mate must be remembering the same thing.

_They had just left the pool, James supporting Q as he always did, the omega’s limbs relaxed and unsteady, affected by the heat in a way the alpha’s weren’t. Normally their routine would then move over to the drying clothes and bedding- a wide span of thick white furs cushioned underneath with feather-stuffed pillows that Mycroft had had imported from the south. They would usually dry off there, or spend some time with a massage and oils, before heading back._

_The routine started no differently from usual, James guiding Q over and settling him down in a way that the omega could manage perfectly well on his own but perhaps just didn’t want to… There was just something about being settled into place, into the comfiest, softest spot, that his alpha had chosen, that left him a little shivery with pleasure._

_James had sunk down beside him, erection still standing proud and red-tipped, glistening from water and jutting obscenely towards his mate’s stomach. Q looked at it, eyes caught as James sat down, and found his itching palm moving of it’s own accord._

_At the lightest of touches; Q’s hand coming to cup and remember the heavy weight of the alpha’s cock, James’ breath caught deliciously. Q found a hand in his hair and a soft question of his name. James kneeling beside him, holding his head and the man’s cock was in line with Q’s eyes. After a quick check that James’ eyes were lustful and wary only for him, The omega dragged his hand experimentally up the shaft and fingered the fold of skin around the tip. James’ hips jerked with a quiet grunt of want as Q brushed a finger over the slit there, rewarded instantly with a bead of pearly white coating his fingertip._

_He drew back, heart thumping, barely remembering the salty taste of his mate’s seed and brought his finger to his lips, rubbing the bead of thick moisture there until James’ tight inhale made him reopen his closed eyes._

_Blue, enraptured irises were locked onto the sight of his smeared lips, dribbles of come now leaking over James’ twitching erection and fist where he’d grabbed himself._

_“Q,” Slowly, heart thumping excitedly at the growl, the sight of his alpha undone, Q brought his finger between his lips, sucking at it and the residue smeared behind._

_The taste sent a shock of familiarity through him and he fell back with a moan of his own, wishing there was more of it. That they could have more than this._

_“In my last heat, you said you would do whatever I wanted,” Q began, eyes on James’ parted lips and hyper-focused eyes, nose full of the rising scent of alpha pheromones in the air. “If we can’t, if I can’t, but we could still do things… excluding the obvious, what would you want to do?” It was tentative, low, wondering if anything else were even possible. Q couldn’t take fingers right now until he started to wet naturally, much less a fist. But he wanted to be James’; he wanted to lick and nip at his alpha’s body, suck on his cock but worried about forcing himself backwards into heat and breaking._

_“I want you to lie there whilst I come on you.” James spoke without a breath of hesitation, voice low and rumbling as if he was speaking the language of sex now rather than human or wolf. It sent Q’s throat dry. Partly excitement of something he hadn’t thought of… and a lot of it at the thought of being covered in James in such an obvious way. “And then not wash it off.” Q’s breath caught. “Walk around with me on your skin claiming you with every wolf able to smell it on you, know that you’re marked, that you’re mine.”_

_“Blanca, yes, do it.” Q moaned out after a whimper, eyelids flickering. James’ growl was all lust and possession as he swung to straddle Q’s hips and begun stroking himself firmly, impatiently. Q found his body bending up as if drawn to him whilst his alpha exerted the last week of sexual tension, pumping almost painfully with his right hand as the other skimmed down over Q’s body, pinching hard at a nipple, dipping into his belly button and stroking back up his neck to rub fingers on Q’s mouth, press them in to hook against his tongue._

_Mouth occupied Q whimpered and sucked, eyes unable to chose between closed in the heady scents, James’ eyes or the sight of his large cock being worked so firmly, roughly, with none of the gentle teasing twists those fingertips seemed to favour the tip of Q’s own cock with. For all that he treated Q’s penis like a sweet plaything there was no such patience now. The alpha’s tight grip demanding on his cock until suddenly he was whining and pulling his hand from Q’s mouth to switch it to his cock as his right grabbed the omega’s thigh and pushed up on the soft flesh to expose him._

_Q smelt the spend in the air and arousal drowning him as hot splashes and spurts began to coat between Q’s legs, his mostly-limp cock, his twitching hole, everywhere in wet warmth. James grunted, pushing his thigh up further until Q gasped for breath a little and getting some on his buttocks, then releasing himself with a shudder to grab Q’s waist with a come-covered hand, hot and searing like a brand. His left pressed on the omega’s belly for a moment before sliding with a wet trail up to his neck._

_Shuddering, consumed, Q could feel the wet being rubbed into his neck, layered there like a scent blanket and strong so close to Q’s nose._

_He felt wet, and covered, and owned somehow as James gently eased down the leg that had remained bent. For some reason the alpha pressed Q’s soft cock between his legs into the mess before pushing his thighs together. The wet heat of it made him squirm until James was shushing him, dressing him, still covered in sperm and flushed, overwhelmed. The clothes pressed the alpha’s spend -less than usual though it had been without a knot or Q- into his skin whilst darkening the fabric in an obvious way with the moisture._

_James sat Q up and curled him into his lap, stroking over the worst of the damp patches as if to encourage them, shushing Q gently when he realised that he was sitting on James’ still-wet cock, the final smears of ejaculate rubbing off onto the outside of his clothes on the seat of his trousers where any wolf would so easily see and smell it on him, along with the remnants of white on his throat._

Now Q shuddered at the memory, skin still itchy in places from yesterday’s dried come as he sank, guided, into the warm water. He’d been too comatose to make it back to their den but even the walk through to Alec’s old in-mountain reside had passed wolves with curious noses and left Q blushing yet sated.

John, when he’d found them, had been nearly apoplectic with rage, and Sherlock little better. Thankfully Mycroft had never found out as Lestrade chased the others off with a roll of the eyes at the younger wolves.

Now, perched on James’ lap, skin slipping wetly and feeling James’ erection rise against him, Q felt flushed all over again, tingling with anticipation… thoroughly wanting.

The alpha was starting to soap up is hands, face a little tight in his own avoidance of arousal, when Q looked down and could see the man’s cock in the water… see small drops of white ghosting away from the head in the gentle flow.

Yesterday’s taste now felt not nearly enough. Everything in him yearned for more to the point where his mouth was salivating. Quickly, before either of them could think through sense, Q pecked a kiss to the corner of James’ startled mouth, took a deep breath and dipped under the water. The warmth and pressure sounded in his ears but it was no trouble at all to push off James’ lap to kneel weightlessly on the pool floor and nuzzle forwards to the man’s jumping cock.

By the time James’ startled, water-slow hands found his hair Q had opened his mouth and blindly taken the hard heat of James’ cock inside. The body under him rolled up instinctually and Q’s mouthful of cock and eagerly dribbling pre-come swelled rapidly. The taste, the feeling of being anchored so obscenely to his mate’s body left Q suckling greedily, swallowing, some water going down along with the thickness of flesh and seed and it was messy and delicious. James’ hands fumbled in his hair, helplessly bucking into Q’s mouth and down his throat until Q was chocking swallows against the still-swelling length in his mouth, barely able to keep enough suction to keep out the water as James clutched him so tight his nose was pressed to the curled hair at James’ groin. Q lapped and sucked hungrily for as long as he could before fighting free with the burning need for air in his tight lungs. James hurriedly helped pull him off and up and Q broke through the surface into cool air with a gasp and splash.

It was the air that seemed to do it, James was clutching him tightly to his neck, hips still bucking for contact and murmuring a litany of praises and assurances as Q panted.

“Fuck, Q, warn me next time. Lobo I could barley last feeling you like that again. Damn, easy, breathe alright, are you okay? You’re not going down there again, fuck, I’ll sit on the edge if you’re really thirsty for a bellyful of come and you can lap it up,” James’ own words seemed to shoot through both of them and Q’s spine shuddered…

And he felt a new heat within him, passing out between his legs and he whined desperately.

“ _James_ ,” The alpha paused, panting, as Q grabbed his hand and brought it between his legs under the water, brushing against his cock that he hadn’t noticed harden.

It was James’ turn to moan wantonly, almost whimpering as his fingers played in the hotter-than-the-water, thicker slick beginning to drip out of him. Tentative fingers played and circled around Q’s hole. As Q’s wide eyes met James’s shocked, lust-blown ones, the alpha pressed in. Q’s whole body shuddered and collapsed heavily onto James’, panting almost uncontrollably, muscles flexing pullingly around the two-fingered intrusion, bucking back to take in more, feeling knuckles slide past the ring of his entrance and slide apart.

Not heat, it wasn’t a heat, but his whole body bowed to James’ as if this was what he’d been born to do. Q had never really understood submission before, or maybe not even consent… but this was as if every fibre of him was committing to submitting to his mate, and he bit James’ neck desperately.

“In me, James in me, _please_ , want to be yours-“

“ _Q_ ,” James growled, whined, and pulled Q back into his lap by the fingers still inside him, the omega’s legs willingly giving way and control to the alpha.

“You’re sure?” James husked as he slid his fingers out, and Q looked up into clear eyes, knew his own head’s coherency and willingness if pliancy, and smiled.

“Yes.” It was all James needed because he was biting Q’s neck and Q could feel the bulbous head of his cock pressing up relentlessly and then breaching him with a suctioned-feeling pop. He didn’t stop, and although the stretch _burned_ there wasn’t pain. Q gasped, teeth scraping against James’ skin as he was filled beyond what he could remember, as if it was the first time, stuffed and stuck and surrendered to the feel of James _still_ pushing in.

It was odd, outside of heats. Harder in a way. He wasn’t blinded to the intrusion by the lust for it. Everything felt so close and just _more_. The length and girth of James, the heat of the alpha’s skin on his, the pressure of fingertips gripping around his hips and James shuddering against him with held-back muscles. Even the weight of water seemed to be making this more intimate, more immediate, _pushing_ them together and supporting them.

He whined, legs spreading, felt full to burst as he felt hands on his hips tighten and James pulled out only to slam back in fully, repeatedly, fucking Q up out of the water almost as he stood to get leverage, growling with a half-roar in his urgency. Q clung on desperately, legs tightening around James’ muscled waist as he was thrust into, feeling more full for the movement, aware of dribbling slick even under the water, his own hips bucking helplessly as he was overwhelmed by the consuming stimulation. James’ thrusts reached a point where he stood so fast that they both slipped, going under the water. Ridiculously Q tightened his grip on James as they were submerged, adjusting it as, even underwater, James pulled him back down snugly and firmly onto his cock, holding Q’s hips there until the omega could do it himself. Bubbles water and slick flesh around them, Q felt James jostle around inside him thickly as his hands grabbed Q’s buttocks and he shifted to stand. The movement, feeling partly dragged out of the water by the firm cock in him pressed on that spot inside Q that made him see stars.

Lost to the pleasure and rocking himself on James’ cock as much as he could whilst grabbing him tightly, Q didn’t notice a change in position as they surfaced until he was laid on a flat rock at the edge of the pool. James’ fingers stopped kneading his arse and one hand grabbed his hip again, the other pressing his shoulder down as he restarted the punishing rhythm, grunting and staring at Q with almost fevered eyes. Q gasped, unable to get any leverage and barely able to keep eye contact. After a moment he unhooked his legs and bent them back to his chest, moaning until his cries hitched, body jerking at the increased feel of James’ thick cock stretching him and hitting that spot on every sharp, deep thrust.

He was quivering, that electricity rising within him and then James slipped out, cursing his lost footing. Q whined and almost placatingly James lent whilst he gathered his balance in the water to nuzzle between Q’s legs. He gasped at the heated tongue and lips engulphing his balls and cock at once, James groaning around the mouthful and releasing him wetly before going further back. Q’s whole body ratcheted up to watch as James’ thumbs spread his cheeks and the alpha lapped into his hole. The tender, flexible tongue on his muscles left Q quaking and dribbling into James’ groaning mouth, hands coming to clutch the man’s head, wet cock and balls resting obscenely on his forehead as Q bucked onto his tongue, taking his pleasure there even as he scraped a bit on the hard floor. James licked as hard as he could, pointing his tongue and thrusting it into Q but the ticklish intrusion wasn’t enough, left him pushing away after a while with a whine.

“Shh, you need more, don’t you,” James rumbled, his voice sounding wrecked as he pulled Q back into the water and seamlessly onto his cock. It felt big again and Q wriggled on it, full, pressing a hand to James’ chest as they fell back to the shelf-seat together, joltingly.

“S-slowly, slowly, I want to feel you.” He gasped. It had been too long, he wanted everything, wanted to never loose the feeling of having his mate inside him. James soothed a hand through his hair slowly, catching his breath.

“Slowly it is.” The man agreed, pressing the words into Q’s lips.

James barely moved after that, worshipping kisses along Q’s neck and shoulders as the omega clenched around him, rocked a bit, memorised the feel and took his pleasure languidly, hands clutching tight to James’ hair. When the feeling of the intrusion in him for so long was starting to feel demanding, himself sensitised, Q couldn’t help moaning, whimpering a little through a pant for help as he drooped against James’ shoulder. His own breathing harsh, James began rocking up into Q with a slow, burning drag that sent him writhing, gasping and tightening with each push in. It started to feel like he’d moulded himself to James’ form, an impossibly perfect fit, and the slick, hot slide was so slight that at first Q didn’t notice his own building pleasure until soft pants were turning to mewls, his body tingling and tensing as he clenched and clawed closer to James, nails biting into skin.

With a long, soft growl that filled Q to the bones James’ teeth sank into his neck and he took over thrusting more firmly. The swelling base of his penis had remained outside of the omega but now James took Q’s hips in his hands and guided the omega down till the beginnings of the knot breached tight muscle and held him there as he writhed and bucked, James little better, biting a little harder. The pressure was nearly too much after years without when he was still tight as a glove around James’ cock, and his hips stuttered in confusion of pleasure and pressure as he was held, having to just take it as James swelled within him, sealing them together.

Unable to hold back James began bucking up into him, Q tightening around his knot and jerking in pleasure until it just kept swelling. The alpha bit down and held Q tight as he confusedly tensed around the growing intrusion beyond what he remembered.

His mate’s rumble to coax relaxation timed with his hole losing any tense grip that it had with a burst of pleasured pain and climax shot through him as he clenched weakly, helplessly around the knot stuffing him too-full. James’ knot filled the now lax-space and groaned, tugging Q close as he pressed deep and came. It felt like a hot gush of come filling him forcefully and without Q managing to clench around James’ knot it started dribbling out into the water. Feeling this James shifted and bucked himself up deeper, sinking his knot further into Q until the omega’s shot-muscles could tighten fractionally to clamp and seal them.

Lax, feeling the heavy weight of come swelling and still threatening to escape Q wriggled as the fluid pushed deeper, his belly tightening at the pressure swelling inside it and he gasped a little. James’ hand came to rub him there, soothingly.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, strained but aroused. “It’s been a while.

“Nnns’fine, full,” Q whimpered, feeling drugged and heavy with fluid, loved as James’s hands moved to coax him through it, the alpha rumbling delightedly.

They took a while to detach, simply rubbing and nuzzling each other in the hot water. Q felt James’ knot recede and slip out with a gush of sperm and was glad this pool had a current that cleaned the water. He still felt heavy from the amount that had managed to reach his womb and stay in his channel; a hot, tight weight sitting low in his belly, but without being in heat nothing would come from it. Gradually all of it would be eased out, likely leaving him quite messy and uncomfortable until it did. He found himself a bit bereft at the idea too, that this weight in him now wouldn’t turn into a bellyful of James’ pups, but there would be time for that, now. Now that they knew he was ok.

Still, James had to help him out of the bath and he could feel come and slick dribbling out and down his thighs. They went to the drying furs and rather conscientiously James put a thick piece of cloth under Q’s rump so they didn’t matt all the furs.

Q tried to curl into James’ lap, entirely ready for closeness and sleep, but the alpha was insisting on lifting his leg up and tracing fingers over his sensitive, swollen entrance.

“What are you doing?” Q complained mildly, flushing a bit and trying to put his leg down, feeling exposed.

“Shh let me check you, that was rough for a first time, gorgeous.” Mollified, and a little pleased and embarrassed Q shifted until he was comfortable and let James check him for signs of damage. The alpha was so thorough that Q almost begun to feel heated again but after a final stretch of his loose hole evidently revealed nothing more than a fresh pulse of still-warm come James retracted and moved up to curl Q into his arms.

There the omega yawned and nudged close to his heart, wiggling a little in happy contentment as James’ warm hand went to his full belly and held him possessively. Gentle lips fussed over his head and hair till Q chuckled and batted at him gently.

“You’re amazing, Q, Lobo I missed this.” He was pulled closer still and nuzzled under James’ neck, sighing at the calming scent there.

“I love you, you silly perfect wolf.” For that, James chuckled again and shifted into his fur and nosed at his neck and belly, licking at both, before spending a lot of time sniffing between Q’s legs. For a while he just enjoyed the feeling of James licking him carefully, taking care of cleaning him up before he shifted into his wolf form to enjoy the feeling of breath through his fur, tail thumping gently. He slowly drifted into a contented sleep, enjoying the feeling of James’ weight climbing on top of him to bracket the sprawl of his body. Without the sexual drive involved, Q felt the knowledge of being partnered and protected tip him over the edge into a sated sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After everything these two have been through in this story and the importance put on heats and their influence on individuals, the way a Run and mating would be considered consummated, etc... It was very important to me to rather than end this with another heat to end it with some fully informed, enthusiastic and 'heat sober' consent.  
> I think they've earned that much, and they've certainly travelled that far.
> 
> And although heats will still be a very important part of wolf life and any potential sequels of this story, this 'choices' direction (does that make sense? Let's pretend it makes sense!) is the way I/00Q envision/would like wolf life to go in their future. So it's a hopeful sort of chapter... hopefully! ;D And I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing Q and Bond finally relaxed and free enough to experience it.
> 
> Ciao next week!


	12. Howl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late, but as it's the last chapter it had to be right. :)

[](http://imgur.com/OLHVlz0)

 

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It took several days after Q and James had reclaimed their bond in the Traditional sense that the omega braved asking about howling to Alec again. It wasn’t that James didn’t want him to call the other man, he was sure. Hopefully the alpha’s reservations were more to do with Q’s health and the possibility that a walk up to Intelligence Pass would harm him.

Over the last three days however, Q was feeling like a new wolf. He was still enjoying food, sleep and company a bit too much to be entirely recovered, but everything about moving, breathing, thinking, felt lighter in a way he hadn’t for…

Well, years, if he was honest.

In fact, Q couldn’t remember feeling quite so bright and alive and quick on his feet and swift of thought since his childhood freedom.

Yesterday, caught with the feeling of nothing but pure happiness he’d asked James to play and spent an hour chasing and being chased over the rolling heights of the mountains, pausing to stroll through clear streams and feeling like he could really _feel_ it all for the first time. And, Blanca, looking at James in the mountain sunlight in his striking fur, eyes blindingly blue, had nearly stopped Q’s heart.

The best of all, finally, there was nothing to stop them from indulging in each other under the privacy of nothing but some distance from the pack. There was no wolf-danger, no hunger, no thirst, no need to get somewhere. The world seemed at peace, and by Blanca was Q drinking it up like he’d been starved of it.

Given James’ frankly hilarious playfulness yesterday, full of rolling and a gleefully high tail, ear nips and prancing paws, he thought his mate must be feeling peace in his fur too.

So, given their high spirits, this seemed the perfect time to try and do the last thing he felt he really needed to in order to put the past behind him.

“James?” the alpha looked down at him from where they were cuddled up together, cooking outside in the sunshine.

“It’ll be ready soon.” The alpha smirked, thinking Q had his belly on his mind again. Blushing a bit with a snort Q batted gently at James’ stomach.

“No not that. Although it smells amazing. I want to go howl to Alec soon.” James’ stirring movements paused for a fraction of a second, resuming with a slight strictness that wasn’t there before.

“I won’t stop you Q.” But the words sounded ugly in their tension.

“No, I don’t think you would, but you aren’t happy about it… Why? It’s just, I’ve got a plan that I think will work to reach them.” Q continued, giving James some time to think about just what his tension was whilst he talked, fiddling instead with the fingers on the alpha’s free hand. “Volume is always the problem across those distances, I think if the whole pack were to howl, or at least a decent chunk of it, with the same message, then they’d be bound to hear it. And, possibly, he could get the whole pack to howl back and then I’d know that they’re safe, too.”

Q tried to keep his voice level throughout, but it frayed slightly at the end. It was truly the one thing marring his conscience that his leaving might have destabilised the pack or there might have been an uprising of alphas or of the unmated omegas or, on a more personal level, that they couldn’t forgive him for what he’d had to do. Even then Q wouldn’t regret leaving, but finding out for sure would ease that remaining fleck of guilt and unknown.

The tremor in his voice seemed to be what convinced James to speak as well. The alpha’s eyes remained on the stirring stew as he spoke, but his fingers slid a little further to curl around Q’s waist.

“I know you want to, Q, and I’m not going to stop you… Knowing that and doing it are two entirely different things though.” James frowned a bit. “Thinking about you going up there, it’s like risking you leaving again.” Q opened his mouth in surprise and understanding, about to say something, but James stopped him quickly.

“It might not make any sense to you, but…” James stopped the pretence of stirring and turned with a short, rough laugh to fix Q with pained eyes. “Up there is where I lost everything.” Q took a deep breath, feeling his mate’s lingering agony with the understanding of his own; now thankfully diminished, in Q’s case.

“I don’t want to cause you that pain but I, I have to do this, I think… Alec was always there for me, he deserves to know that I made it, they all do… But I suppose, I could, not go up there and, the rest of you could try,” The words tasted like defeat in his mouth but given all that James had done for him- large hands grasped his face before the thought could get any further and he met the other man’s eyes.

“No, Q, no,” James said, each word sounding pained that he had pushed to that point. “Never that.” Relaxing at the assurance, and James’ hand brushing through his hair, Q could see the light of gratitude in James eyes at Q for even suggesting it. “Even if it’s something hard for me, I’m not going to be the one holding you back…” The man paused for a thoughtful moment, lightening the mood with his next words. “Although if you did threaten to jump again, I may have to sit on you.” Q laughed, hand finding and squeezing James’ knee at the amusingly undignified image.

“Well we wouldn’t want that. But if it helps we could tie ourselves together or you could hold my tail like I have to going underground. I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want either.” Q pointed out seriously, meeting James’ eyes with a raised brow.

“It would be good to hear from Alec.” James offered, probably phrasing it far too lightly as he stroked a hand over Q’s belly to distance himself.

“Well, we’ll work something out then.” Q rounded off decidedly, half distracted by the hand on his stomach and the thought of it holding something fuller, and half elated at the prospect of reaching out to the other side.

-00Q00-

As high up in the mountains as Intelligence Pass, there was always snow no matter the season. With the bright sun beating down from a blue summer sky and his pack around him, the situation should have been just different enough for James despite the familiarity of the snow.

Even he had to admit, it was quite a sight. The entire MI6 pack moved as one, chattering away and laughing, united in the novel, exciting cause of contacting a foreign pack.

Still, even without the sounds of a growling fight around him and with Q close by his side, the alpha felt that kernel of tension in his gut like a plant seed caught in his fur. When Q at one point trotted happily ahead of him slightly, eyes bright and nose caught on a breeze all James could see was that tri-coloured coat moving away from him, away to never come back.

With a worried growl James pounced and Q yelped in surprise as he was rolled to the floor, James flattened over him and grumbling at the path in front of them. The pack around them wisely continued moving and intentionally ignoring the pair, giving them a wide berth to ease the alpha’s strung out nerves.

“Sorry.” James admitted in a growl, mouth finding and holding onto Q’s scruff. Just in case he tried to move.

“It’s alright.” Came Q’s slightly bemused response. The omega twisted enough to lick over James’ cheek and ear and slowly the alpha felt himself calm.

The sun was warm on his back, Q’s now soft and healthier fur warm beneath him, the cold touch of snow on his paws was a pleasant counterbalance and helped him focus. Q continued his licking for a while before speaking again.

“I’ve got an idea, if you want to try.” Now calmer, James softened his already gentle hold on Q and nuzzled there instead for a moment.

“Alright.” He finally replied with a deep inhale of Q’s calming scent. With a wolfy smile and cheerful lick to his muzzle Q sat up from underneath him and deftly took the delicate chain his glasses hung on between careful teeth. James couldn’t do more than frown in confusion before Q had leaned up and looped the chain around James’ neck as well as his own. The alpha could feel the pull of the chain in his fur, the close press of Q’s and the tension from where the loop tightened in the omega’s own coat.

At the close, intimate space they found themselves in, Q met James’ eyes.

“I can’t go anywhere without you feeling it first now, and I wouldn’t want to… So, together?” For a moment the pale wolf didn’t know what to say, a brief shock of laughter won out, tension leaving him like a breathe of wind blowing through the snarls in his soul.

“You sneaky genius. Together, then.” James agreed, meeting Q’s bright eyes and wondering how on earth they’d made it this far. By any wolf’s design, what they’d accomplished was incredible. An absurdly large burst of pride filled him, and he stood as one with Q, eyes on each other for long moments as they padded up the final lengths to the jagged edge of Intelligence Pass.

Q’s eyes swung forwards excited and eager and bright green as sunlight through new leaves.

Wolves lined the edge of the mountain range on either side of them, loud and calling to each other to hold on tight. The wind was low in summer laziness and on either side of Q and James were their closest members of pack. Behind them on the path yet more wolves filed in until the 64 strong pack was in place and the chatting lulled to a quiet patience.

James took a moment, following Q’s half wise, half fondly amused eyes gaze over the peaks of distant mountains he’d never took the time to notice before.

One day, he hoped to go the same path, to see what his mate had, to learn that new side of the world and see what sighs and smells were over there; things Q could describe but couldn’t be pictured in his mind. He longed to see Alec, see him settled and with a mate of all things… and pups! More than anything, he wanted to go with Q there.

Just as he had at the beginning of their time together, when he’d wanted to whisk Q off to journey and adventure on their own. Living as just themselves, for just themselves, travelling and bonding in the way only the truly free could.

Now, he would have that, _they_ would. He’d found by blind luck the one mate who could open the world for him.

James could only hope that he’d given Q back the same magnitude of something seemingly unobtainable. After all, of all the wolves in The Run, Q had never believed he would find someone to trust and love. To love enough to come _back_ to. A sense of fulfilment and boundless promise, _exhilaration_ , gripped him tight as Q took a deep breath beside him and pointed his muzzle to the sky in the start of his long uniquely spinning howl.

James filled his own chest with crisp mountain air and threw his own head back to join in with Q’s.

Behind them, around them, their pack rose into the song and clamoured their voices higher, louder on the heights and breeze than he’d ever heard before. The song of wolves thundered through James’ body, ringing around the heights. The age-old call left him proud to the bones as they all united to howl the same words over mountains and snow and distance;

_Alec. Q, made it home._

There weren’t words to describe the feelings that flooded James’ chest when the ecstatic howl of his best friend replied. Quiet initially over distance only to be swiftly buoyed up by the euphoric pack of omegas singing alongside him.

With Q beside him, his pack surrounding them and Alec’s equally supported voice in the air, nothing but everything felt possible to James, now that they’d all found home.

 

…

 

Further back than anyone cares to remember, wolves were named not on the whim of their mothers but by their distinguishing features or qualities. Fond-names and words fashioned in the quiet became what names modern wolves would use today. But the True-names of wolves would be how they were recalled by their packs, their rivals.

Blank-Eye and Lope-On were hardly the wolves set to change the world by any pack’s standards.

As a damaged runaway and a beaten-loyal soldier, only chance, revenge and love bound them. Would come to bind also the wolves that followed them on the perilous journey that was only one challenge of their lives.

Unfit for the purpose of changing the structure of wolf society though they were, they were fit for the journey that would lead them to sanctuary. The prowess of spirit and body that was their blessing would sadly come to be the curse of their generations to come.

Blank-Eye demanded alphas prove their steadfastness and strength by ‘catching’ their omegas in a run over changing terrain that demanded dedication and focus. The faint of heart and body would fail to catch a mate. Those incapable of wining over and defending an omega wouldn’t get one. In their minds, the wolves decided this would put an end to mates being handed around without say, without heart or _willing_. Instead value was placed on proving worth to a mate that you yearned to catch.

If you couldn’t catch the one you yearned, you weren’t worthy of them.

Now Lope-On had caught and won over Blank-Eye, and Blank-Eye had fled from or fought off all but Lope-On… But the mistake of Blank-Eye, and Lope-On, as with all wolves seeking to make a change, was to judge others by the same qualities and guides they use to judge themselves.

Decades down the line, centuries later when the origins and motivations of the first celebratory Run were all but lost to today’s wolves. Tradition would have become a torture to the very ones Blank-Eye was trying to save.

Not every omega could be as strong. Not every omega could be as fast, or as bright. Not every alpha could be as true of intent, or capable enough to reach the one they yearned first. Not every omega was willing or capable of showing their teeth to an alpha. Not every alpha could exercise restraint or dedication.

Maybe, if they could have looked into all their many and varied descendant’s eyes, those two wolves would have had a change of heart. Made The Runs softer in the favour of their future, rather than harder to exorcise the sins of their pasts.

Although their names would soften with use over time, from Lope-On to Lopo to Lobo, from Blank-Eye to Blankai to Blanca, their Runs would increase in severity to test the bounds of pack, strength and love between all wolves.

The very things that had brought them over the mountains, and would eventually drive an aged Lobo to gently lead his all but blind mate up into the ice to lay down in their final resting place together.

But, after all, even the best laid plans of worms and wolves crumble to ruin in the end.

And sometimes, even be shattered and rebuilt fresher by those offered a chance, who are willing to fight for a chance to try.

 

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[](http://imgur.com/H6rVmrB)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Largely this is late because of that last goddamn picture! That one at the end there took a few days to complete, I kid you not! But I wanted to do a big group pic so one was done ;D Sadly I couldn't find a valid reason to have Alec and Eve in there, as this is of the main MI6 wolves as we know them at the moment.  
> Um, the order's a bit complicated, but here goes! From left to right:  
> Q and Bond. Ros, Tanner (front) and Lestrade (back), John, Mycroft (back) and Sherlock, Severine, Bram (very front), Felix (middle back row), Erik, Charles and Logan on top of each other, Lukas (front far right), Boothroyd and Kincaid at the back.
> 
> Interesting fact wise; there's a study that's found out wolves can be identified based on their individual howls, how cool is that?! *science geek out time!*
> 
> **Sequel Wise:** I have started writing a first draft, but I like to have most of it written before posting, and I'll probably take a break to work on some other WIP's for a break. So it probably won't appear for a couple of months. But yes, I can indeed promise long awaited for 00Q pups in the next part x3 I'm excited!
> 
> Well, this story has ended -save for the inevitable sequel- but I can't bring myself to make a big deal about it because I might have already cried a little writing some of this chapter! As for the extra-bit at the very end, it might not be very interesting, but it's important to me and this verse. And yes, one of the lines and indeed the name for this whole sequence of stories is taken directly from the book _Of Mice and Men_ by John Steinbeck, which happens to have been a favourite of mine for many years.
> 
> I'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read and hopefully enjoyed this story, it means the world to me, it really does! And to those who have taken the time to comment and kudos you are amazing, I love you a little bit, and please never change!  
> So, hope to see you all in the next part! :D Ciao for now!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos and critique appreciated :3


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